
V/V-V^ 



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LOVE ABOUNDING, 



anti ©tijer ^Expositions on 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



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GEORGE if WATSON, D.D., 

Author of "White Robes" "Holi7iess Manual,'''' "Coals of Fire''' "Seven Over* 
Comeths'' and "Fruits of Canaan J " 




BOSTON AND CHICAGO : 

Mcdonald, gill & co., 

Office of "The Christian "Witness," 



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Copyright, 1891. 

By Mcdonald, gill & co. 



$ress of " Wqi Christian miinm," Boston* 



CONTENTS, 



CHAPTER I. 
Love Abounding 1 

CHAPTER II. 
The Sevenfold Commission 17 

CHAPTER III. 
Father of Lights 31 

CHAPTER IV. 
Superiority of Love 42 

CHAPTER V. 
The Four Outpourings of the Spirit 51 

CHAPTER YI. 
The Way to Obtain 62 

CHAPTER VII. 
The Two Veils 73 

CHAPTER VIII. 
The Spirit of Revelation 86 

CHAPTER IX. 
Israel; or, Power with God 112 

iii 



iv CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER X. 
Saving Man from his Purpose . 138 

CHAPTER XI. 
Superior Advantages of the Indwelling Com- 
forter 163 

CHAPTER XII. 
Offering Up Isaac 178 

CHAPTER XIII. 
Learning Obedience 199 

CHAPTER XI Y. 
The Principles of Faith 217 

CHAPTER XV. 
The Beatitudes 239 

CHAPTER XVI. 
Bible Beading on the Five "Much Mores" . . 248 

CHAPTER XVII. 
The White Bobed Company 258 

CHAPTER XVIII. 
The Promises of God 272 

CHAPTER XIX. 
ISHMAEL AND ISAAC 283 

CHAPTER XX. 
Our Calling .,..,,, 293 



CONTENTS. v 

CHAPTER XXI. 
Soul Eest 304 

CHAPTER XXII. 
Noah's Dove 329 

CHAPTER XXIII. 
Tongues of Fire 347 

CHAPTER XXIY. 
Whiter than Snow 358 

CHAPTER XXV. 
Questions and Answers 373 

CHAPTER XXVI. 
Questions and Answers 392 



LOVE ABOUNDING, AND OTHER EXPO- 
SITIONS ON THE SPIRITUAL LIFE. 



CHAPTER I. 

LOVE ABOUNDING. 

s 'And this I pray, that your love may abound yet more and more 
in knowledge and in all judgment; 

"That ye may approve things that are excellent; that ye may 
be sincere and without offense till the day of Christ; 

"Being filled with the fruits of righteousness, which are by 
Jesus Christ, unto the glory and praise of God." — Phil. 1: 9-11. 

WE can understand these words better, according to 
their true import, by rendering them thus : — 
This I pray, that the love of God in you may overflow 
your whole nature more and more, perfecting your 
spiritual knowledge, and all your spiritual senses, 
making you able to discriminate the things that differ ; 
that ye may be clear as a sunbeam, and be no stumbling- 
block till the day of Christ, filling you with the fruits 
of righteousness which are by Jesus Christ unto the 
glory and praise of God. 



2 LOVE ABOUNDING, 

In this closet prayer of Paul for the Philippians, we 
have one of those panoramic views of the elements of a 
complete Christian. Let us notice a plain exegesis of 
these words, and see how they fit our experience and cor- 
respond with the reason of things. This word " love " 
is emphatically the love of God. In the New Testament 
there are two words for love. One is philos, which 
is the word for a natural human affection, which exists 
in greater or less degrees throughout the entire animal 
kingdom, including all the natural affections of human 
nature apart from special divine grace. The word 
agape is invariably used to express a divine affection 
imparted to the soul by the Holy Ghost; this is the 
love referred to in the text. Previous to regeneration 
the soul may have various feelings toward God and 
Christ, — of reverence, respect, admiration of His grand- 
ure and works, a poetical taste for His natural attributes, 
an attachment and regard to the ordinances of religion ; 
but every such affection can be accounted for on the 
basis of natural love. When we are born of the Spirit 
there is shed abroad in our hearts, by the Holy Ghost, a 
peculiar and hitherto unknown love for God and His 
Son Jesus. It is an exotic transplanted from a celestial 
clime by the hand of God ; it is a personal attachment 
to our Heavenly Father, a heart passion toward the 
Lord Jesus, an ineffable yearning for the Divine, an 
instinctive and dominant regard for the things of God 



LOVE ABOUNDING. 3 

which is utterly beyond the products of nature. No 
fine heredity, no degree of culture, no drilling in 
religious ceremonials, no rigid discipline of law, no 
literary sentimentalism, no study of the material works 
of God, no poetical genius, no mere influence of 
Christianity, can ever produce that heavenly, seraphic 
affection designated in the word agape. It is a river 
whose head waters are in a better world ; it is a spring 
from the heart of God ; it is poured like a cataract 
upon the world through the atonement. It is opened up 
in our hearts in regeneration ; and under the Pentecostal 
baptism of the Holy Ghost it rises to high tide, filling 
the banks of our being till the heart, the speech, the 
intellectual faculties, and all the inner senses are 
deluged with its holy energy, according to the prayer of 
the text. 

The next word to be explained is " more and more." 
I pray that your love may overflow more and more. 
This expression " more and more " is greatly misunder- 
stood as applied to religion. We hear people speak of 
getting more religion, more pardon, more cleansing, etc. 
Such a use of the term results from a lack of spiritual 
enlightenment. In this passage it refers to the increase 
of love, knowledge, discernment, and the positive side 
of grace in the soul, and not to the negative side of 
eliminating evil. 

There is a negative and a positive side to the spiritual 



4 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

life, both in the new birth and sanctification. In 
conversion the negative side is pardon, removing of 
guilt ; the positive side is regeneration, an imparting of 
the love and life of God to the soul. There are no 
degrees in pardon, — it is full, perfect, complete ; but on 
the positive side there may be an increase in the 
intensity and evidence of regeneration. In like 
manner the negative side of holiness is the purging out 
from the heart the native carnal mind ; the positive side 
is filling the purified heart with the life and grace of 
the Spirit. The Scriptures do not. teach any degrees of 
cleansing the heart from original sin ; in every passage 
where this work of purification is referred to, it is 
spoken of as a complete, full, entire work, without 
degrees or gradualism. But the filling of the purified 
soul with certainty, light, love, unction, energy, and all 
the positive forms of grace, is characterized by the terms 
"growth," "increase," "built up," "abound," "enlarge," 
and " more and more." When a farmer clears his land, 
the removal of stones and stumps and all obstructions to 
culture is the negative work, and can be so perfectly 
finished that he would never find another old root or 
rock in the field , but the positive side of deepening the 
soil, fertilizing it, irrigating it, rendering it more 
productive, can be increased " more and more " without 
a special limit. So it is with the work of grace in the 
soul ; hence the long and beautiful vista which is opened, 



LOVE ABOUNDING. 5 

tip in this expression of " more and more " must be 
understood just as the apostle designates^ it, —to the 
positive forms of grace, the limitless enlargement of 
love. 

The next word is "knowledge." I pray that the love 
of God in you may overflow in all knowledge, or, in 
giving you perfect knowledge of spiritual things. The 
word for knowledge is cpignosis, which means perfect or 
full knowledge. It does not simply mean intellectual 
information gathered from external sources, but the 
inward conviction and certainty of the matter involved. 

It is the shedding abroad of God's love in us that 
brings the positive knowledge of divine things. The 
faculty of spiritual knowledge is in the heart and not 
the head, and divine, love is the only thing that can 
revitalize this interior faculty so that it will be able to 
gather up spiritual knowledge from the fields of 
revelation with the same facility that the senses gather 
knowledge from the fields of creation ; and in propor- 
tion to the fullness of love will be the fullness and 
intensity of knowledge. Some things we must know 
in order to love, but with God and spiritual truth we 
must love in order to know. Love is the alchemy that 
transmutes revealed truth into experience. The great 
doctrines of religious life pervading the Word of God 
are to many but fleshless skeletons, like the dry bones 
of Ezekiel's vision ; but the love of God raises them 



6 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

from the mere "letter," and turns them into an exceed- 
ing great army of living, moving forms of blessed 
experience and certainty. The fatherhood of God, the 
divinity of Jesus, the efficacy of Christ's blood, God's 
special providential care over the minutest affairs of His 
children, the fellowship of holy souls, the reality of 
things to come, — all these and many more are rendered 
by this abounding love, brilliant and unquestioned 
certainties to the soul. 

Perfect love is the only panacea for skepticism and 
doubt, There are three forms of knowledge, — instinc- 
tive, rational, and intuitive. Instinctive knowledge 
predominates mostly in the lower animals. Rational . 
knowledge predominates mostly in the human race. 
The intuitive form of knowledge is divine ; it prevails 
among the angels and spiritually enlightened beings; 
hence, perfect love, bringing us into the realm of the 
intuitive knowledge of divine things, opens to us the 
highest and most certain forms of knowledge in 
the universe. 

The next word is " judgment," or, more properly, 
spiritual sense or perception. The word implies the 
exercise of the five senses of the soul. I pray that love 
may abound to the filling of your spiritual senses, 
rendering them strong, keen, quick to perceive the 
facts of the spiritual world, just as the physical senses 
perceive the facts of the material world. The Bible is 



LOVE ABOUNDING. 7 

full of allusions and incidents respecting the inner five 
senses of the soul. The apostle prays that we might 
be strengthened with might by the Spirit in the " inner 
many The senses of touch, taste, smell, hearing and 
seeing in the body, are no more real than the same 
corresponding senses in the soul. Sin renders these 
senses dead and inactive. Having the spiritual organ 
of vision, they see not; having ears, they hear not. 
In regeneration these senses are restored to life, and 
under the full baptism of the Spirit they are purified, 
clarified, and rendered keen and vigorous. 

Divine love is to our spiritual nature what blood is 
to our physical being, — the essence of life, the source 
of health and strength, the very elixir of being. As 
the health and vigor of our bodily senses depend on 
the blood (except from external wounds), so the health 
and vigor of our spiritual senses are reached by the 
inundation of the love of Jesus. 

When God spoke to Samuel it was to the inner or- 
gan of the soul, and not to the outward, physical ear, 
for in that case Eli could have heard it as well as Sam- 
uel. The fiery horses and chariots in the mountains of 
Samaria were not seen by the physical eyes of Elisha, 
for in that case his servant could have seen them as 
well as he ; but it required a special act of divine grace 
opening the interior organ of vision to enable him to 
perceive the heavenly guardianship about the prophet. 



8 LOVE ABOUNDING, 

The Psalmist says, " O taste and see that the Lord is 
good " : which cannot mean a physical bnt a spiritual 
tasting. Perfect love floods the inner senses with such 
vigor, vivacity and keenness that the soul moves in a 
kingdom utterly unknown to others. It gathers honey 
from what, to others, seems only a carcass; it perceives 
the path of duty where others see only confusion ; it 
can detect the presence of good or evil where others 
do not ; it can feel the warmth or the ice in the midst 
of a congregation of worshipers; it can hear God-s 
voice sounding over land and sea ; it can feel the tem- 
perature of the social current in which it moves, as 
readily as a sailor can detect the warmth of the gulf 
stream or the chill of icebergs ; it intuitively knows 
things, without being told, which others are oblivious 
to. No one can describe the subtle, ethereal, rapid 
movement of the inner senses when acting under the 
fullness of God's love. Not only in the hour of death, 
but in many seasons and ways, — 

The world recedes, it disappears; 
Heaven opens on the eyes; the ears 
With sound seraphic ring. 

Not only the sinners, but the great mass of nominal 
Christians, walk the earth with their souls encoffined, 
with their spiritual senses locked in death ; or if 
brought to life, are so choked and diseased with car- 
nality as to be unable to perceive the thousands of 



LOVE ABOUNDING. 9 

things that are transpiring in the spiritual realm. 
Nothing less than pure love controlling the soul can 
bring the spiritual faculties to their proper normal 
function. 

The next phrase is, " That ye may approve things 
that are excellent"; more properly it should be, That 
ye may " discriminate the things which differ." When 
the spiritual senses are purified and strengthened, the 
soul is then able to discriminate the differences in the 
moral realm, corresponding to the physical senses dis- 
criminating the sights and sounds, the colors and mag- 
nitudes, the bitters and sweets of the physical world. 

We are living in a world where everything is mixed, 
where good and evil, truth and error, love and hatred, 
questions of conscience and casuistry, in a thousand 
forms and shades, are so blended that we can never 
make our way through such a tangled forest of moral 
problems unless we are endowed with a spiritual in- 
stinct or intuitive perception of the difference between 
the one and the other. We need a mighty divine love- 
sense, by which we can detect the difference between 
things which to the outward would seem alike but in 
reality are opposite to each other. 

To cite only sample instances. There is a difference 
between temptation and sin, the one being an appeal 
or persuasion to evil, the other being the consent of the 
will to evil. The pure heart, like the pure Jesus, may 



io Love abounding, 

be tempted and even suffer under it, and yet maintain 
perfect loyalty and love. There .is a difference be- 
tween evil thoughts and thoughts of evil. An evil 
thought is a guest in the heart : a thought of evil is a 
tramp knocking at the door of the mind. There is a 
difference between cheerfulness and frivolity ; cheerful- 
ness may be a fruit of grace, and even combined with 
innocent wit or holy satire may be harmless and use- 
ful ; but frivolity and foolish jesting are evil. Yet 
there are many, even professing Christians, who cannot 
detect the difference. Frugality and stinginess seem 
to many about the same, yet in reality are entirely dif- 
ferent. There is a great difference between souls 
bound together by the love of God and souls bound to 
each other by mere human societies or a partisan spirit. 
There is a difference between liberality and extrava- 
gance ; the one is a virtue, the other a vice. There is 
a great distinction between being sober-minded or self- 
denying, and being of a sour, caustic, severe sort of 
religion. 

The work of Christian holiness has been greatly 
damaged in many places by its teachers insisting upon 
a rigid, severe, butcher-knife type of religion, not know- 
ing the difference between severity and Christian 
soberness. 

There is a great difference between keeping the 
"law of love " and being in bondage to the old law of 



LOVE ABOUNDING. U 

rignteousness by works. There are some professing 
holiness who have fallen from the Christian liberty of 
perfect love into the bondage of merciless law. The 
fullness of divine love has been dethroned by a cast- 
iron severity, which sways a merciless scepter through 
all their life. Religion has run into some external, 
physical legalism. They keep the Sabbath in such a 
way as to make the Sabbath day a despot. Salvation 
is reduced to a question of eating meat, wearing neck- 
ties, drinking tea and coffee, not kissing your wife on 
Sunday, and the penalties of hell are suspended on 
such trifling things as bound the old Pharisees hand 
and foot. 

Instead of being filled with the law of love they are 
filled with the love of legality, by which they insist on 
measuring other people, whether they be rich or poor, 
old people, youth or little children, the learned and un- 
learned, people of refinement and those of coarse man- 
ners, by their iron bedstead, and either cutting them 
off or pulling them out, to make them fit. I know of 
some who have bound themselves to secret forms of 
severe asceticism, which are utterly unwarranted by 
reason or revelation. In every instance such persons 
lose the fullness of love before they get in bondage 
to such fanaticisms. 

There is an infinite difference between the law of 
love commanded in the Scriptures, and the mere love 



12 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

of law, which Christ so thoroughly condemned in the 
Pharisees. Oh, how we need a God-given, intuitive 
sense to discriminate the difference between these and 
a thousand other things, which outwardly seem alike 
but in reality are at antipodes ! So many professing 
Christians go around asking what is the harm of this 
and that, — what is the harm in tobacco, Sunday news- 
papers, novels, or card playing, or a social dance, 
etc. They run to human teachers for merely human 
opinions. A cow in a meadow has such an instinctive 
sense of the difference between weed and weed that 
she will eat the one and reject the other. If Chris- 
tians had the same kind of sense in the meadows of 
the moral world they would know what was food 
and what was poison without waiting for some mortal 
to decide the question. It takes the abounding love 
of Jesus to fill our inner senses, in order that we may 
make these quick and accurate discriminations. 

The next word is " sincere " ; more properly, " That 
ye may be pure as a sunbeam." The Greek word, 
eilikrineis, from eili, a sunbeam, and krineis, to judge ; 
implying that a soul perfectly cleansed and filled with 
love will be clear as a sunbeam, in which the- Searcher 
of hearts finds no evil or guile. According to this 
word, Jesus, who is the Judge, can cleanse the human 
heart to His own satisfaction, so that when He gazes 
into its depths He will find no depravity, but a beam 



LOVE ABOUNDING. 13 

of light and love like the great Orb of infinite light, 
and a similarity of nature with His own. 

"And without offense until the day of Christ." This 
word " offense " means a stumbling-block. Abound- 
ing love saves us from being stumbling-blocks to 
others. If we are merely nominal Christians or cere- 
monial Christians or spasmodic Christians, we will 
certainly be an offense or a cause of stumbling to 
some souls. The abounding love of Jesus will lead 
us steadily and earnestly in the way to heaven. And 
while steadily going in the way of righteousness, souls 
cannot stumble over us, any more than the hinder 
wheel of a wagon can stumble over the front wheel. 

" Being filled with the fruits of righteousness which 
are by Jesus Christ." " Righteousness " refers to the 
expression of salvation in the outer life, as the term 
" holiness " refers to the state of the inner being and 
life. To be filled with the fruits of righteousness im- 
plies that every fruit of grace is to be expressed in 
our life, in our words, our labors, our liberality, our 
zeal, our study, our prayers, our tempers ; and that 
we are to be in sympathy with every enterprise for 
doing good to the bodies and souls of mankind, or 
the doing away with cruelty toward the lower animals. 
It does not necessarily imply that we be specially de- 
voted to every branch of good work or philanthropy, 
but that in heart we are in agreement with every good 



14 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

work in the world, and ready, as occasion offers, to 
lend a helping hand or a helping word. Many ignor- 
antly criticise the revival of holiness as being a spe- 
cialty, whereas the fullness of perfect love is in reality 
the absolute qualification for every other good specialty 
in the world. If } r our special Christian work is in the 
line of Sabbath schools or missions or temperance or 
education or publishing books or evangelism or the 
ministry or nursing the sick or the care of children, 
or any other good work, it is impossible for you to be 
thoroughly fitted for every good work unless you are 
made perfect in love ; for Paul declares that the 
special purpose for which all Scripture was given, 
was that the man of God might be perfect and thereby 
thoroughly furnished unto all good works. (2 Tim. 
3 : 16, 17.) Just as summer sunshine is essential to 
every variety of fruit that grows in the earth, so the 
summer of pure love is essential to the production of 
every fruit of righteousness in the highest degree. 

We are filled with these fruits of righteousness by 
Jesus Christ; that is, by our union with Him, by 
being filled with His Word, cleansed by His blood, 
baptized with His Spirit, united by faith to Him, and 
ever drawing from Him the hidden sap which pro- 
duces the fruit, as the branch incessantly draws from 
the vine the sap which produces the clusters. 

" Unto the glory and praise of God." The won- 



LOVE ABOUNDING. 15 

derful sentence of the text would be incomplete 
without the doxology in these last words. All 
came from God; and when the harvest of grace is 
produced in the soil of human hearts, the gathering 
of the harvest is to the glory and praise of the divine 
Husbandman. The fullness of grace in the soul is the 
best advertisement of the u God of all grace." I 
know a man in Canada who has a plum orchard so 
remarkable for its fruitf ulness and quality it has be- 
come an advertisement for him for thousands of miles. 
But no one ever thinks of praising the orchard ; but 
they laud the consummate skill and industry which 
has produced it. A neighbor of mine in Florida has 
an orange tree which has yielded fifty boxes of oranges 
in one season, and it was the theme of conversation 
among fruit growers for miles around, and the owner 
of the tree got all the praise. Do you not think that 
God enjoys showing a full-fruited saint to the admira- 
tion of men and angels? Our full salvation gladdens 
the beatific circles of heaven, where samples of fine 
spiritual fruit are duly appreciated. When Jesus be- 
holds our hearts in their natural state, they are like 
stony, sterile, frozen fields of the frigid zone ; but 
when they have been broken by repentance, thawed 
by regeneration, and every stump and rock removed 
by sanctifying power; when they have been planted 
with the seed of His Word, enriched and watered with 



16 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

the crystal streams of His Spirit, and cultured by His 
hand, and ripened in the summer of His love till every 
inch of the soil waves with the golden fruits of right- 
eousness, — who can tell the unutterable Spy that thrills 
His blessed being when He sees the travail of His soul 
and is satisfied. 



CHAPTER II. 



PAUL'S SEVENFOLD COMMISSION. 

"But rise, and stand upon thy feet: for I have appeared unto 
thee for this purpose, to make thee a minister and a witness both 
of these things which thou hast seen, and of those things in the 
which I will appear unto thee ; 

" Delivering thee from the people, and from the Gentiles, unto 
whom now I send thee, 

"To open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, 
and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive 
forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them which are sancti- 
fied by faith that is in me. 

" Whereupon, O king Agrippa, I was not disobedient unto the 
heavenly vision." — Acts 26: 16-19. 



YOU perceive that this is the commission Jesus 
gave to Saul at the time he was smitten on the 
way to Damascus. This is the most complete descrip- 
tion of his conversion Paul ever gave, and in it is put 
something that he does not state elsewhere. In other 
places the conversation between Jesus and Paul is not 
recorded, but here he gives a full account. In reading 
the account it is evident that the bystanders did not 
understand what was said. Jesus evidently spoke to 
Paul either in an unknown language to the others, 



18 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

or else by the Holy Ghost into Paul's heart, so that 
He gave Paul a spiritual conversation that the others 
could not understand. Some think that Paul was 
not pardoned until he reached Ananias ; but this 
statement shows that he was pardoned and accepted 
the very moment he said, " Lord, what wilt thou have 
me to do ? " The Bible proves that just as soon as 
a person is submissive to God's will, that instant he 
is justified. Paul was perfectly submissive and 
obedient, and that is the only condition for salvation. 
It is interesting to notice that there are seven things 
mentioned in this commission. 
• First, The attitude : rise and stand. 

Second, The office he was to till : minister and 
witness. 

Third, The subject matter he was to deliver : what 
he had seen and what he was going to see. 

Fourth, The deliverance God should give him from 
the Jews and Gentiles. 

Fifth, The instrument he was to preach with : 
light. 

Sixth, The two persons he was to deal with: turn 
from Satan to God. 

Seventh, The salvation he was to communicate: 
pardon of sins, and sanctification by faith. 

In conclusion, The response of Paul's heart to this 
sevenfold commission : " I was not disobedient unto the 
heavenly vision." 



PAUL'S SEVENFOLD COMMISSION. 19 

What a wonderful commission ! How it opens up to 
us a great panorama ! Another feature is, that each 
one of these seven points is twofold. It is wonder- 
ful how, all through the Bible, divine truth is double- 
barreled. There is a duplicate form of every truth 
in the Bible, a twofold statement, so that just as 
man has a twofold nature (body and soul), a two- 
fold sinful nature (original and actual), so all truth 
comes in a twofold sense. Let us notice this twofold 
nature of each of these points. 

What is the attitude God wants us to take toward 
Him? "Rise, and stand." That is the first point in 
the commission. A man might rise and fall down 
again, or he might rise and run or stagger. That truth 
has a twofold form. What is the meaning? Of course 
to Paul it meant to rise from the dust where he was 
fallen, and listen; but it has an application to us as 
much as Paul. We are to "rise, and stand." To 
" rise " has an application to us like this : we are to be 
aroused from our lethargy, and out of our inertia, 
coldness, formalism ; if we have been in a state of 
indolence or ease, to rise out of it ; so, in the deepest 
sense, we are to get out of the dust, lethargy, and 
ashes of unbelief that are in the world. 

God says, " Let Zion arise," etc. ; so we are to 
arise from the drowsiness that falls upon millions of 
Christians in the world. Then, " Stand." That means 



20 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

we are to take an attitude before our Jesus that is 
one of loyalty. We are to " stand " and receive God's 
commandment, God's word, in our hearts. It is the 
attitude of loyalty and perfect obedience ; it means, 
"Here, Lord, I am. What do you want to tell me?" 
or, " Here I am, to run, walk, or fly ; to be or do or 
suffer your divine will." It is the very attitude of 
entire consecration. 

The first thing God does when He leads us into 
sanctification is, to arouse us ; we have to get awake 
on this subject, — get up. And the next is, to " stand 
up," the attitude of obedience to His will ; that is 
entire consecration ; and then we are prepared to 
receive everything God has got for us. You get 
anybody thoroughly aroused and standing up, — they 
are where they can receive anything God has to say. 

Second, He was to fill a twofold office: minister 
and witness. There is a difference, but God wanted 
Paul to fill both offices. There are persons called to 
be witnesses who are not called to be ministers in 
the sense Paul was ; but no one is ever called to be 
a minister and not to be a witness. But all admit 
that has not been the idea of the Church in all ages. 

The custom has been, that a person might be a 
minister without any personal testimony of experience. 
When Martin Luther began his career, nianj- were 
" ministers," but very few could "testify " to accepted 



PAUL'S SEVENFOLD COMMISSION. 21 

salvation in their own hearts. John Wesley, when he 
began his reformation, found the ministry the same. 
They opposed Mr. Wesley, and denied that any one 
could know their sins were forgiven. 

When Methodism commenced in America, the idea 
was opposed that one could know his sins were 
pardoned, until opposers were finally compelled to 
admit it. But even to-day there are thousands of 
ministers who never testify to pardon, and how few 
testify to a clean heart and a full salvation ! 

There has gone an impression out over this land 
that it is not " dignified " for a minister to tell his 
experience ; and so largely has this sentiment spread, 
that even Methodists think it derogatory to their 
ecclesiastical dignity to stand up and tell how they 
were converted. You will find, as a rule, that young 
ministers are more willing to mingle in testimony, 
because they are nearer the time of their conversion. 

The old time ministers used to weave their experi- 
ence into every sermon, and they would often break 
down ; and when it was God's time to break the 
preacher down, the people broke down too. 

If the Church, if all the Methodist preachers, could 
only first get an experience worth telling, and then tell 
it on all proper occasions, the same fire would accom- 
pany it as in times past. Can you find an epistle Paul 
wrote that he didn't weave in his experience? It 



22 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

was his burning experience that burned its way into 
the Roman Empire, glory to God ! I know what 
pardon is, and I know what the cleansing blood is, 
and I can testify to both the tremendous work of 
conversion and the glorious work of cleansing from 
inward depravity. "We are to confirm our preached 
truth with our testimony. 

The next item was the subject matter he was to 
present, the scope of his testimony. He might have 
said, " What shall I testify ? " And the Lord said, 
" Thou must both [that means two] to those things 
which thou hast seen, and to those things in which I 
will appear unto thee." 

Now St. Paul was not entirely sanctified at that time. 
He was wonderfully converted then, for Jesus Christ 
never would give such a commission to a child of the 
devil. How would God put such a wonderful apostolic 
commission on a man at that time a child of the devil ? 

Here was Jesus, talking to a man He then made an 
apostle, and whom He " commissioned " there ; but 
St. Paul didn't get all at that time. Paul was there 
"justified," for he was "obedient unto the heavenly 
vision." The moment a man is obedient to the 
heavenly vision he is justified. Paul saw Jesus, talked 
with Jesus, he was " pardoned " ; that was a great deal. 
He was to preach that much. " Now these are the 
things ye have seen, but this isn't all. I am going 



PAUL'S SEVENFOLD COMMISSION. 23 

to appear further unto you, and ye shall minister and 
testify of those things in the which I will appear unto 
thee " ; and he did, in Arabia. During that time he 
was led out into the infinite ocean of God's love ; the 
particular day isn't mentioned, but he says that the 
same God who called him to be a minister and witness 
was revealed to him, and then in him. They were 
two events. Jesus was revealed to Paul, and a short 
time after He was revealed in Paul. (Gal. 1 : 15-17.) 

Now Christ speaks to Paul here, in perfect harmony 
with what Paul says after : " You are to be a witness 
of both," etc. So Jesus wants us in our ministry 
and testimony to embrace all the revelations God has 
made to our hearts. He has revealed Himself to us 
as our "forgiving" Lord, and, if we follow on, He 
will reveal Himself in us as our sanctifying Lord. 

Oh ! if Jesus can afford to make such wonderful 
manifestations in and to us, shan't we be willing to 
advertise the manifestations ? Thousands of Christian 
people and ministers are talking against Jesus. One 
minister said that when it said, "a man that abideth 
in God sinneth not," it was ideal. Why is not all the 
rest of the chapter ideal too ? That man may be a 
sincere man, but he didn't know he was talking against 
Jesus ; but when a man minifies the grace of Jesus 
he is helping on the cause of the devil. People some- 
how talk against God when they think in their hearts 



24 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

they are talking right. Oh, let us advertise Jesus, 
because He has got so few people to tell the whole 
truth ! 

The fourth point is a twofold deliverance : " I will 
deliver thee from the people [Jews] and from the 
Gentiles." The word "people" means the Jews, his 
own people. The word " Gentiles " means his enemies, 
outside of his own kin. Now the commission was 
twofold: "Paul, you minister and testify, and I 
will take care of you, — give you a twofold deliverance 
both from the Jews and Gentiles." How does that 
apply to us ? 

The Jewish people were Paul's relatives and 
friends, and the Gentiles his foes ; so, applied to us, 
it means, " I will deliver you from your friends and 
foes." Don't you know we need to be delivered from 
our friends as really as from our foes ? Sometimes 
people's friendships are just enough for them to 
betray us, as Judas's friendship with Jesus. So Christ 
had friends, blood kin, sisters. I have an idea Christ's 
relatives would beg Him to pursue a different policy, 
so Jesus had to be delivered from His own friends; 
and one day His mother came to the church door 
and wanted Him to stop preaching, to see her. He 
said, " Who is my mother ? " etc. So Jesus had to 
have in Him a divine presence that would keep 
Him from being swerved. Even good people some- 



PAUL'S SEVENFOLD COMMISSION. 25 

times don't know what God wants us to do ; so 
Mrs. Job thought her husband was going too far. 

Our salvation from hell may depend on the fact 
that John Wesley went beyond the advice of his 
own blood and kin. So God calls holy men and 
women to dare and do, and labor beyond what their 
friends think. It does not mean to be delivered 
from our friends in a fanatical sense, that we must 
rashly wound their feelings, for those things are 
tricks of the devil ; but even the loved ones of our 
bosom must not keep us from helping on the work 
of God. We need a deliverance, marvelous deliv- 
erance, that we may follow the Son of God 
whithersoever He goeth ; and when God does give 
us the deliverance, our friends will see in the end 
that we did the right. God will justify those who 
obey Him. And our foes, " Gentiles," are those 
out in the world who disregard God ; yet God will 
deliver the perfectly obedient child " both " from 
friends and foes. 

Fifth, He was to be saved to turn the people 
from " darkness to light." Here is his work for the 
people. The word "darkness" refers to error; so 
that if God has His way with us, He will use us to 
turn people from error to truth. Here is a work 
that needs to be done along the line of full salvation. 
There is a great deal of error in high circles. 



26 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

" Error likes a high throne." There is one error, 
unless God does a wonderful work, one tremendous 
error, that I am afraid is going to ruin Methodism 
in America, — the Plymouth doctrine of imputed 
salvation. 

I am no alarmist, but a dumb creature can see a 
thunderstorm coming; and the doctrine of our 
depravity as covered over with the righteousness 
of Jesus, is spreading like wild-fire in this country. 
A sermon on sanctification is not relished; why is it? 
There are evangelists going around teaching that 
you are sanctified in Christ; that God never does 
make you holy in your heart; and there are great 
camp grounds where men are allowed to hold a 
week's Bible reading before thousands, where the 
doctrines as preached by Wesley are boldly de- 
nounced. One says, " You never can be free from 
depravity till you die " ; that is taught all over the 
land. 

The doctrine that you are " covered over " by 
Christ's " holiness " is the devil's bait to ruin the 
Methodist Church. Thank God we have some who 
are straight on this subject ; but there are others who 
will accept anything else. One teaches, "Sancti- 
fication is received at conversion " ; the other, " When 
we die " ; another, " It comes by growth " ; and 
another, "We are sanctified in Christ, with our 



PAUL'S SEVENFOLD COMMISSION. 27 

depravity covered over." I have known men to 
accept three or four views of sanctification at the 
same time ; but when God says that He will turn 
us from " darkness to light " it means a great deal, 
and this is no day to trifle. God could not bless 
error if an angel should preach it. 

Sixth, There are two persons mentioned here : 
" from . . . Satan unto God." When we come down 
to bed rock on Bible truth, there are only two persons 
after our souls ; one is Satan and the other is God. 
The devil has a great many agencies. He doesn't 
stand out and say, " I am the devil," but he uses 
broad-gauge theologians and cold professors and 
inbred sin ; and as long as we have inbred sin in us, 
the devil has an ally in our hearts. If you only 
have a little depravity in your heart, it is on the 
devil's side ; now when God proposes to turn us 
"from Satan," He means to deliver us from all his 
works, and bring us into fellowship with the God 
and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. 

And now, seventh, the great salvation ; it is two- 
fold: "forgiveness of sins, and . . . sanctified by faith 
that is in me." The forgiveness of sins is a perfect 
work ; God always does a perfect work ; but a 
perfect forgiveness is a very different thing from 
entire sanctification. Forgiveness refers to one 
hemisphere of your moral nature, and entire sanctifi- 



28 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

cation to another. There is a hemisphere of voluntary 
wrong doing and a hemisphere, of unintentional 
evil dispositions ; there are things people do that 
they know are wrong, and there are yearnings that 
do not come to the surface ; they lie beneath and do 
not come to the will power ; it lies behind the will. 
The hemisphere of what a man is responsible for 
is covered by pardon. When God forgives j r our 
sins He forgives every sin you were ever responsible 
for; but complete sanctiflcation goes into bed rock in 
the moral nature. There are things away down that 
we grieve over ; sanctiflcation proposes to give us 
relief in the "basement story" of our moral nature. 
And this is "by faith," not by growth; grace can 
grow, but cleansing can't grow. Cleansing prepares 
the way for grace, and puts grace where it can 
grow. 

The Bible says, " Grow in grace." This is called 
the " inheritance." What is an inheritance ? It is a 
property that has been willed us or inherited from 
relatives. Do you ever hear of a child inheriting 
property before it is alive or born ? So that in 
order to inherit sanctiflcation we must first be born 
of God, and we must be alive. When a man is 
born of God he is an heir ; and just as soon as you 
are an heir, you are a candidate for your property. 
Does a child " grow " or " manufacture " what it 



PAULS SEVENFOLD COMMISSION. 29 

inherits ? No ; it inherits a piece of property already 
made. 

Now Jesus says that you are going to inherit 
sanctification ; and you can't buy, grow, or manu- 
facture it. Jesus, in His will, left you the legacy of 
the full baptism of the Holy Ghost. Just go to 
Christ, your Lawyer, put in the will and probate it, 
and claim your property. 

When a child goes to get his property, he gets it 
by faith. He wouldn't go unless he had faith in the 
will. If you are going to make money yourself, 
you must work ; but what you inherit is made for 
you. He suffered and He worked hard and He 
opened the fountain of cleansing, and we can go and 
receive it by faith. 

Now, when Jesus had made this wonderful com- 
mission, oh, how the words of Jesus swept the entire 
circle ! and when Jesus put this enormous commission 
upon the heart of Paul, he simply put it back on 
the heart of God, " I will." Paul opened his heart 
to the Lord as *a flower opens to the sun ; and when 
Jesus unfolded this wonderful commission, Paul 
said, " I will." " Whereupon, O king Agrippa, I 
was not disobedient unto the heavenly vision." 

Brethren, have n't we had heavenly visions ? 
Has n't God opened up to you the privilege in God 
for you? Oh, let us never refuse the heavenly 



30 LOVE ABOUNDING* 

vision ! It may cost us some tears. It cost Paul 
thousands of tears ; and he obeyed on the ocean, in 
shipwreck, making of tents, etc. ; but all the while he 
had a river flowing through his soul, more than a 
match for all the outside circumstances. There are 
some streams that are too warm and too swift to 
freeze. There was such a stream in Paul's heart. 
He was " obedient unto the heavenly vision " ; and 
being obedient, he is now in heaven, where greater 
visions of God are perpetually unfolding to him. 



CHAPTER III. 

THE FATHER OF LIGHTS. 



"Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and 
cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variable- 
ness, neither shadow of turning." — Jas. 1: 11. 



T ET me call your attention first of all to the two 
I * kinds of gifts mentioned in the text. The word 
speaks of "good " gifts and of " perfect" gifts, and in 
the original they are quite distinct. The Greek word 
translated " good gift " has the significance of a 
natural benefit or blessing ; but the word rendered 
" perfect gift " is taken from a root that signifies 
atonement, crucifixion, suffering. We might read it 
thus: every natural, providential blessing, and every 
sacrificial blessing is from above. 

Now notice that James calls the natural, providential 
gifts " good," but the sacrificial blessings he calls 
"perfect." Those gifts which flow to us through 
nature and providence are " good," but those which 
come through the atoning work of Jesus Christ are 
pronounced "perfect." If you will study, you will 



32 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

find that Scripture never applies the term perfection 
except along certain lines. It does not speak of 
perfection in your outward life or conduct, but your 
life and conduct may be good ; it does not speak of 
perfect conversation, but your conversation may be 
good. And so we find the same fact in what pertains 
to nature. Our food and raiment and natural 
surroundings, our situations and trials, whatever 
God has thrown around the body or the soul, that is 
a good gift. But the other blessings, which come to 
your spirit through the atonement of Jesus Christ, such 
as regeneration, such as adoption, such as love, such as 
sanctification, — these gifts are emphatically pronounced 
to be perfect. In these there is not only a goodness, 
but a perfection. It is well worth your while to notice 
how accurately the Bible describes things. 

The world is a fallen world, and in dealing with 
this world God is dealing with wicked men all around 
you, as well as with you. I don't know that anybody 
ever heard of a perfect season. Maybe nobody has 
perfect health. We do not have perfect food nor 
perfect clothing. But the weather is good, and the 
food is good. In all these outward things God is 
dealing not only with you, but with a wicked, sin- 
cursed world. When God sends meat and bread and 
butter, remember God is dealing with a sinful world. 
You have never seen what God can and will do with 



FATHER OF LIGHTS. 33 

a perfect world. If God could get a chance to bless 
a world without any sin in it, then there would be 
perfect circumstances and perfect conditions around it. 
But when you come to the soul, there is where the 
atonement strikes us. When you come to salvation 
from sin, then God is dealing with the individual man, 
and in your soul God can implant and impart 
perfection. Notice here that everything God does in 
religion is perfectly done. God never gave an 
imperfect pardon in six thousand years. People ask 
how we are to get another perfection if we are 
perfectly pardoned. A perfect pardon is one thing, 
but perfect cleansing is another thing. When a man 
gets one thing perfectly, it does not follow that he 
has all other things perfectly. A pardon is just as 
perfect as God can make it, but that pardon don't touch 
innate depravity. When all transgressions are 
pardoned, there is something in your nature yet, — 
that old man who has been in you from your birth. 
Depravity cannot be pardoned. If your child plays 
in the mud and ruins its clothes, you can forgive 
him ; but if he is born with scrofula, how are you 
going to forgive that out of him ? You cannot pardon 
what he never did. Depravity needs cleansing. So 
there is a perfect repentance and a perfect justification 
and a perfect witness of the Spirit and a perfect 
cleansing and perfect love in the soul and perfect 



34 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

filling with the Holy Ghost. The outward bless- 
ings are necessarily mixed with evil, because they 
reach us through a sinful world; but the inward 
blessings come directly through the Holy Ghost and 
are perfect. 

Having shown you the two branches of this text, 
the good without and the perfect within, let us see 
how they both proceed from a common stem. The 
text says that both are from God, — both are super- 
natural, both are from above and beyond us. The 
providences of God outside and the Holy Ghost inside 
are so manifested that there is a perfect agreement 
between God's operations within and without. God 
saves us by His grace, but it is equally true that He 
saves us by His providence. God arranges all for you, 
— where you were born and how you were brought up 
and all your surroundings and what kind of sermons 
you have heard preached and what warnings you have 
received. Here he sends you a terrible chastisement 
and there He adds His great mercy and blessings. Here- 
He takes away a friend and there He sends one to you. 
So God clothes you and strips you. So He has thrown 
around you the network of His providences, all adapted 
to lead you to see your own nothingness, to lead you 
to get rid of self, to lead you to read the Bible, and to 
be filled with His love. And what God is thus doing 
in His outward providences the Holy Ghost is doing 
within your soul. 



FATHER OF LIGHTS. 35 

Yonder is a poor boy at work on a farm. He goes 
whistling along, intent only on his work and pleasure. 
But all at once, in a little prayer meeting, he is con- 
victed of sin ; and the next day he goes out alone into 
the field, and there behind a stack of fodder he 
repents, and finds peace with God. His outward cir- 
cumstances, his poverty and his necessity for constant 
work look hard ; but you can see that if he had fine 
clothes and fine possessions he would go straight to 
hell. And God has taken away that boy's friends, 
and let him work hard, in order to make him cry 
down in that fodder field. Now he wants to preach, 
but he has no money; until at last he finds a friend 
who gives him money to buy books, and he works 
his way. When other young men in the college are 
asleep he is sawing wood, and praying as he saws 
his wood. All this poverty looks hard without, but 
it makes him deep within. These severe outward 
providences are God's mud-machines to deepen the 
main channel. God wants to deepen men's souls, 
so that the cargoes of truth can float all through 
their natures. 

If you read the New Testament records of men's 
lives you will see this outward and inward work. 
The very thing that we say will cripple and hurt 
us is often the thing that God is using to help the 
Holy Ghost in His work within. Could you write 



36 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

out your life in the light of God, } t ou would find it 
marvelous. You would see that there has not been 
a minute since you were born that the finger of 
God's love didn't touch you in His providences. 
When }^ou see as Jesus saw, you will find that even 
the hairs of your head are numbered. 

Now James says these good outward gifts and 
these perfect inward blessings all proceed from the 
mind and will of God, and both of them contain the 
love of Gocl. Both of them flow down from " the 
Father of lights." That implies that God is a sun, 
shining in the heavens. Our natural sun is the 
father of the moon and the other satellites. Now 
James, by this astronomical figure, compares God 
to the sun; and as our sun throws light on Jupiter 
and Venus and Saturn, so God shines on angels 
and saints and men, who, like the planets, reflect 
this light on minor and poorer subjects. But all they 
have comes from the central light and heat. 

But there is a finer meaning. James says that God 
is like the sun, with this exception : He has " no 
variableness." These words in the Greek literally 
mean that God has " no parallax." And the following 
words, "Neither shadow of turning," mean literally, 
" No shadow caused by a crossing of the tropic line." 
God is a sun that never crosses the tropic line. Our 
sun has a parallax, and twice in each year crosses the 



FATHER OF LIGHTS. 37 

tropic line ; .but God never does that. The best 
idea I can get of a " parallax " is that it is an angle. 
It is by the parallax that astronomers get the measure 
of the heavenly bodies. The astronomer will take 
an angle from one place, and then from another place, 
and then he is able by means of this simple measure 
of an angle, to give you the location of a star, 
and tell you how far off it is and how large it is. 
All this can be told by the simple measure of the 
parallax, or angle. Now James says that God is a 
sun, only you cannot get an angle on Him. You 
cannot measure how large He is or how far He is 
away. You can't compute the diameter or volume 
of that sun. You cannot grapple with infinity; and 
that is why you and I are compelled to serve God 
by faith, and not by brains. If God had a parallax, 
then you might worship Him with telescopes and 
by. your brains ; but He has none at all, and He must 
be simply believed. 

Hence, we can see how impossible it is for science 
to grasp the ideas of God. Why, a little baby in 
knowledge can get nearer to God than a philosopher. 
The reason is, that the philosopher wants to get an 
angle, and measure and calculate and reason ; but 
the little child does not bother about any law of 
parallax, but just goes to God heart foremost and 
gets saved. 



38 Love abounding. 

And as you cannot measure God's providence, 
so you cannot measure His Word. You cannot 
measure spiritual and eternal things, because they 
have no parallax. Spiritual things, like their author, 
are far beyond the reach of the human understanding. 
I would rather be a simpleton with a heart full of 
love than to be a philospher with an ice-house in 
my breast. I would rather be a saint in the poor- 
house than a mere philosopher on a throne. I thank 
God that you can't measure Him. Oh, brother! 
don't try to measure God ! He has no angle, for with 
Him there is no parallax. 

The next point is that God has "no shadow of 
turning " ; that is, no turning shade. Go down into 
the southern countries until you cross the tropic, 
and you will find places where at certain seasons 
your shadow falls toward the north; there will come 
a day when you will have no shadow, and after 
that it will fall either toward the north or south. 
Now James says that our God does not act that 
way. Our God does not cross any lines. Our God 
does not say : yea, yea, and nay, nay. He does not 
get on this side and then get on that side. Our God 
remains forever right overhead. The natural sun 
swings between the tropics of Cancer and Capricorn, 
but our God does not swing nor cross any lines. 

Now the beauty of this is, that if the sun were 



FATHER OF LIGHTS. 39 

always overhead we could never get a parallax on 
it. You must get off to one side, and then to the 
other side, to some extent, in order to get a parallax 
at all, and if the sun were forever above our heads 
this could not be done. Now the reason why we 
cannot measure God is because He is always directly 
above us. Again, when the sun is overhead there 
are no shadows. In the natural world people have 
shadows, but in the spiritual world there should be 
no shadows. The light is all around you; with the 
sun overhead you do not make any shadow unless 
you begin to stoop over. No man ever makes a 
shadow spiritually till he gets crooked. James uses 
this metaphor to emphasize this point. Man is the 
only creature on earth that walks erect. That means 
everything. Talk about the monkeys ! why, the 
best of them go on all fours. The snake, the nearest 
to being an imp of the devil, is entirely prone ; and 
from that up the animals make different angles, 
and all cast a shadow. But God made man to walk 
erect. That means that spiritually you and I are 
to walk straight up and down with Jesus. 

Now there must be something awfully crooked in 
a man's heart when he don't want to get right with 
God. Cut him open and you will find a snake or 
a toad or something crooked in that man. A great 
many Christian people are carrying crooked things 



40 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

in their hearts ; but there is hope for a man who 
wants to get free. The man who does not want to 
get free has got a bad heart down at the bottom. 
When a man deliberately chooses to stay crooked, 
that man will go to hell unless he repents. " If I 
regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear 
me." If I choose iniquity, if I really choose it 
hell will be my portion forever. If you say, "I have 
impure things in my heart and I want to give them 
up," there is hope ; but if the contrary, then you had 
just as well give up to your doom. 

All this shows that if you get the sun on your 
back you will have a shadow. But by the grace 
of God you can be so upright and so downright 
and so outright, that when Jesus comes as a sun 
in your meridian sky, you will have no shadow. 
You can live where there is no sin, no condemnation, 
and where you can know jou. are right with God. 
And, brother, when you get a heart filled with 
perfect love, true and loyal to your God, that 's a 
clean heart, and there will be " no shadow of turning." 

Oh, how God loves to come and sit on our heads ! 
The Holy Ghost came upon the head of Jesus, and 
the tongue of fire rested upon the apostles at Pente- 
cost. I want to see us all made upright and down- 
right, and all straight in heart, and life, and faith. 
I have simply given you the exegesis of this text. 



FATHER OF LIGHTS. 41 

Your Heavenly Father sends you every good gift of 
your outer life, and every perfect gift of your inward 
experience. And then that Heavenly Father is like 
a sun, which, while you walk with God, will cast 
no shadow on your path ; or if it does, it will be 
beneath your feet, where you cannot see it. What 
of infirmity you may still have, God will place beneath 
your feet, so that it will not hinder you in your 
progress to the skies. 

Brethren, don't you want to get straight? Do 
you love everybody? Is there anything to-night 
about you that is not settled? Move down from 
the frigid zone, move down from the temperate 
zone, until you get awaj^ from all Arctic influences, 
and find yourself right under the great sun of God's 
will, and get right under your Heavenly. Father. You 
will find the shadows all disappear, and you will walk 
in the light as He is in the light; and the blood of 
Jesus will keep you clean while you walk, with 
God directly overhead, the earth directly under foot. 



CHAPTER IV. 

SUPERIORITY OF LOVE. 

"And now abidetk faith, hope, charity: these three; but the 
greatest of these is charity." — 1 Cor. 13: 13. 

THE twelfth chapter of this epistle details spiritual 
gifts. The thirteenth is an exposition of the 
graces of the Spirit, and the fourteenth is the com- 
bining of the two, with regard to utility, or to the 
edifying of the Church. 

This text suggests two contrasts : First, the superi- 
ority of grace to gifts, referred to as the "more ex- 
cellent way " ; secondly, the superiority of love to all 
other gifts and graces. 

I. We are to notice the superiority of grace to gifts, 
whether gifts of grace, of nature, or directly the gifts 
of the Spirit. 

In all ages men have been more liable to be cap- 
tured by the external than the internal religion. If 
formalists, the tendency lies in the direction of archi- 
tecture, music and eloquence. If spiritually-minded, 
even then liable to pay too much attention to the 

42 



SUPERIORITY OF LOVE. 43 

outward fruit, such as eating, drinking, dress, etc., 
while both extremes are liable to meet in diverting 
too much attention away from internal conditions of 
the heart. 

Let us notice, in detail, the superiority of grace. 

1. Gifts are varied and unequal. Some may possess 
but one, others five, and still others ten. They also 
vary in their importance — some more, some less valu- 
able, and, because of this great variety, there is no 
proper basis of unity in the gifts ; but their very di- 
versity and inequality furnishes a source of strife and 
disagreement, envy or jealousy, among believers. 

Even in Paul's day churches quarrelled, and believ- 
ers were separated on this matter of gifts and talents 
in their various pastors. (See 1 Cor. 3 : 4.) 

The gifts of the Spirit, like those through nature, 
are dealt out by the inscrutable sovereignty of God. 
In contrast to this, grace is for all, and for all alike. 

The graces are the same in kind in all worlds, and 
among all races of beings. Repentance, faith, submis- 
sion, love, patience, and similar graces, are in sub- 
stance the same among angels, men or children. Here 
there are no invidious distinctions. Everybody may 
have pardon and a pure heart full of love. Hence 
the graces form a bond of union, a source of sympathy 
throughout the pious universe. 

Love is the bond of perfection. We are knit to- 



44 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

gether in love, not in wisdom, or power, or talent; 
and because of the universality of the graces they are 
superior to gifts. 

2. Gifts are merely instrumental. They are the 
spiritual machinery of the soul. They are lodged in 
the mind, the sensibilities, the voice, the body. They 
are external in their manifestations, more than inter- 
nal. They do not constitute in themselves character, 
either good or bad. The implements on a farm by 
which the soil is tilled are not the staple product. 
Balaam was really a prophet, and wonderfully en- 
dowed with both natural and spiritual gifts, yet they 
did not make him holy. Judas was wonderfully en- 
dowed for the apostolic office, and was with the other 
apostles when they cast out devils and wrought mira- 
cles, while his heart was devoid of grace. A block 
of ice may transmit sunshine in such a manner as to 
ignite material substances ; so one may be the medium 
of truth, through His gifts, and not thereby be saved. 
Paul says we may give our money to magnificent 
enterprises, and become a voluntary martyr, without 
love. 

But grace enters into the very nature of the soul. 
It goes deeper than the body, the sensibilities, or the 
mind. It changes and purines the very fountain of 
being itself. It creates, nourishes and matures holy 
character; and because grace constitutes character it 



SUPERIORITY OF LOVE. 45 

is as superior to gifts as the harvest is superior to 
the implements which aided in its production. 

3. Gifts are transitoiy. They are adapted to this life 
and our present mode of being. We may have gifts 
at one period which may not go with us to the end. 
We may have special facilities, supernatural endow- 
ments, and unexplained powers for accomplishing 
things, which may be held but by a short tenure. 

The gift of tongues at Pentecost was not constant. 
The gifts of faith and of healing and of spiritual 
discernment may be very great at one time of life, 
and they may suddenly or gradually pass away from 
the person having them. " Whether there be tongues, 
they shall cease ; whether there be knowledge, it shall 
vanish away." The gifts mentioned in chapter twelve 
will not be needed in a heavenly state of being. 

In contrast with these endowments, which are tran- 
sitory, we are told that "love never faileth." Faith, 
hope and love are to be everlasting residents in the 
soul, and through all outward changes these change 
not. 

II. We are now to consider the second contrast, 
and show wherein love is greater than all other gifts 
and graces. 

To do this, let us have a general definition of these 
three words. 

Faith is the apprehension of truth, either truth 
past or truth in a promise, and a reliance on it. 



46 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

Hope is the anticipation of good things, or those 
supposed to be good, in future. 

This word "charity," or love, means divine love, 
and not human. It also means pure love in contra- 
distinction from mixed love, so that in general terms 
we may define this word "charity" to mean the pres- 
ent fruition of the will of God to us here and now. 

Hence, while faith may have to extend over the 
past, and hope may be nourished on what lies in the 
future, love, like God, lives in the ever-present. It 
is a meek and quiet spirit, receiving God's will now 
and living on that will. 

Now, wherein is this love superior to the other 
graces ? 

1. Love furnishes the proper limit and boundary of 
all other graces. It is in that sense the bond, or band- 
age, of perfection rimming them in. If the soul is 
lacking in other graces, love pieces them out; or, if 
there be a redundance or extravagance in the other 
graces, love curbs them to a proper limit. 

It is impossible to be too extreme in pure love ; but 
where love is lacking, the other graces may be pushed 
into extravagance. Every person who becomes a fa- 
natic is a fanatic for lack, as Wesley puts it, of " lowly, 
humble, patient love." 

Hope may in some things go too far. Hope takes 
in future events, such as our death, the second com- 



SUPERIORITY OF 10 VE. 47 

ing of Christ, the resurrection of the body, or the 
various fulfillments of prophecy ; and if the soul runs 
out on these lines continuously, it may soon lose the 
spirit of love, and enter into various forms of fanati- 
cism. 

The baptism of the Holy Ghost annihilates space 
and time to the soul's apprehension, and it may make 
events which lie thousands of years in the future so 
real that they may seem on the eve of taking place. 
Hence many devout souls overbalanced with the hope 
element, have made almanacs for the second coming 
of Jesus ; they have predicted the time for the rising 
of the Sun of Righteousness and the tidal wave of 
the judgment. Others fancy they will not die, but 
be translated. Others think that the visible Church 
and the nation are crumbling into ruin, and that special 
prophecies are being fulfilled; and with these intense 
views they denounce other saints who do not follow 
their extravagances, as being devoid of the Spirit. 
Thus hope has run away with their chariot and wrecked 
the spirit of love. As long as love governs our hope, 
it cannot be too full. 

In like manner, faith may run at such high pressure 
or shoot out on certain lines of truth in a way that 
will be likely to damage our experience and that of 
other souls. Truth may be apprehended with such 
intense vividness that unless the soul is filled with 



48 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

patient love, the truth will be handled like a razor in 
the hands of a madman. Hence the Scriptures tell us 
not only to speak the truth, but to speak it in love, 
for even truth, devoid of love, may be ruinous. 

The faith by which the sick are healed, if pushed 
into the extravagant statement that physical healing 
is parallel with soul salvation, would be ruinous to 
deep piety ; for the moment that we affirm that phy- 
sical healing is parallel with soul salvation, we will 
reach the next logical step, that people are sick be- 
cause they are not holy, and the next logical step will 
be to reprimand and upbraid the saints who are sick 
in body as being destitute of the Holy Ghost ; and this 
leads to all manner of rashness and bitterness of speech. 
There are many eminently holy ones who have poor 
health in body, and many who have been healed in 
body have but shallow and transitory piety. 

If faith is allowed to go into rash presumption it 
is liable to be turned into bald skepticism ; but if faith 
works by love, and is under the control of a patient, 
humble spirit, it will never go too far. Hence love is 
greater than these graces because it can govern and 
properly limit them. 

2. Love is greater than the ~ other graces because it 
utilizes them all to edification. 

"Love, the divinest of the train, 
And sovereign of the rest." 



SUPERIORITY OF LOVE. 49 

Pure love utilizes all our knowledge, and relinquishes 
that kind of knowledge which is useless. It utilizes 
wisdom, not only seeking to do right, but to do right 
in the very best way. 

Paul teaches us that everything is to be done to 
edification. That which love cannot use it drops or 
gives no prominence to. Hence trances, dreams, fall- 
ing in certain postures, inarticulate and loud screaming, 
odd and singular expressions, and everything in the 
manner which does not really conduce to good, the 
spirit of love will seek to weed out. 

There are demonstrations of the Spirit and over- 
whelming displays of God to the soul, which, for the 
time being may suspend our self-control ; there may 
also be true Scriptural trances, and God may teach 
individuals through dreams ; but if these things be- 
come the objects of attention, and are magnified, they 
cease to be edifying. They come under the head 
where Paul says, " If ye have an unknown tongue, 
or a dream, have it to yourself. In the church of God 
I had rather speak five words with my understanding, 
that others may be edified, than ten thousand words 
in an unknown tongue." Thus love weeds out the 
useless things, and emphasizes and uses those which 
are good. 

Love gives color and weight and fruit to all religious 
actions. Our prayers and sermons and songs and 



50 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

money-giving and church, work are valuable, and in 
the end fruitful in ratio to the love there is in them. 
It is love that gives specific gravity to all our talents 
and all our labors. 

3. Love is greater than the other graces because it 
is in this that we preeminently resemble God, and 
are turned into likeness to His nature. God is love. 
All His actions originate and terminate in love. 
Whether He creates worlds or tribes, or redeems or 
rewards and punishes, all the motions of His infinite 
will are in love. And when we are so melted and 
transformed by His Spirit that all our thoughts are 
loving thoughts, and all our judgments and opinions 
of men and things are conceived and uttered in a lov- 
ing spirit, and all our labors are prompted with love 
to God and our neighbor, it is then that we are fitted 
by perfect similarity to the divine nature both to do 
the will of God on earth and to live in everlasting 
communion with Him in heaven. We never can ap- 
proximate a resemblance to God in gifts and talents ; 
but in love we may bear His full image. Thus, the 
greatest of these is love. 



M 



CHAPTER V. 

THE FOUR OUTPOURINGS OF THE SPIRIT. 
[Reported by R. K. C] 

R. FLETCHER has written a fine essay on the 
three dispensations, which I wish was made a 
text-book for all young ministers in the Church. He 
portrays each dispensation with great clearness: that 
of God the Father, embracing the giving of the law 
and the prophecies ; that of Jesus Christ, from the 
ministry of John to the ascension ; and that of the 
Holy Ghost, from Pentecost to the second advent. 
It is not popularly recognized that there is a gospel 
of the Holy Ghost. The Old Testament is the gospel 
of God the Father; the gospel of Jesus Christ is 
found in the four evangelists ; and in the Acts of the 
Apostles and the epistles, you have the gospel of the 
Holy Ghost. This threefold gospel constitutes what 
Paul calls " the gospel of our blessed God." When 
we speak of the gospel, most people think we mean 
the story of Jesus ; but the entire gospel includes the 
whole thing: law and reconciliation, and all there is 



52 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

in the Ephesians and Colossians and other Epistles, 
into which but few Christians enter. 

Now there are four distinct outpourings of the Holy 
Ghost recorded in the gospel of the Holy Ghost. The 
Holy Ghost operates through believers so that their 
actions furnish us with the marvelous work of the 
Spirit. It will do you good, and will amaze you as 
well, to study out the different things which we are 
told the Holy Ghost did. He killed some people, like 
Ananias, and he struck some people blind, and he 
called for the separation of Paul and Barnabas. It is 
marvelous how much there is about the Holy Ghost 
as the distinct successor to Jesus, as the author of 
revivals, the author of pardon and sanctification, and 
all the other inward benefits of grace. 

These four distinct outpourings of the Spirit corre- 
spond with the four gospels. The first outpouring was 
upon converted Jews at Pentecost (" devout men ") ; 
and the first Gospel was written by Matthew to the 
Jews and in the Hebrew language. The second out- 
pouring of the Holy Ghost was upon converted Samar- 
itans, and they were the class- principally addressed 
by Mark in his Gospel. The third outpouring was 
upon converted Romans ; and the third Gospel was 
chiefly addressed to this class by St. Luke. And the 
fourth outpouring was upon converted Greeks in Ephe- 
sus, the very class to whom John wrote. The Bible 



THE FOUR OUTPOURINGS OF THE SPIRIT. 53 

was not written by hap-hazard, nor by chance. There 
is a marvelous arrangement everywhere, and you will 
find that the Holy Ghost treads close on the footsteps 
of Jesus. 

The fact that the Spirit fell on all these four classes, 
shows us that every Christian ought to be baptized 
with the Holy Ghost. The man who sins and repents, 
sins and repents, is an Old Testament Christian ; he 
has not reached the New Testament yet. He 
may read the New Testament, but he lives in the 
Old. Mr. Fletcher gives a picture of the man who 
lives in the Old Testament but thinks he is living in 
the New. His head is in the New but his heart and 
life are in the Old, with the old Jews, everlastingly 
tramping around Mount Sinai. Some people to-day 
have been pardoned, but have not got over into the 
Acts of the Apostles. They read the Acts, but have 
not got over into the Acts. Their heads are there, 
but their hearts are back in the beginning of the 
evangelists. But a real Bible Christian has been 
through repentance at Sinai, been reconciled at the 
cross of Christ, and been baptized with the Holy 
Ghost at Pentecost. 

The first outpouring was upon converted Jews. It 
did not occur till they were of one mind, and in one 
accord. There was no outpouring while they disputed. 
You must stop all self-seeking, and get entirely self- 



54 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

abnegated. When they got where every prayer and 
sigh struck one key, then God opened the heavens 
and sent on them that wondrous cleansing fire, and 
made them victors over every tiring that was earthly, 
or sensual, or devilish. They were all filled with the 
Holy Ghost. To be tilled with the Holy Ghost is not 
to be filled with emotion. You may be so full of 
emotion that you can't talk, and yet not full of 
religion. Being full of emotion is one thing, and 
being full of a divine personality is entirely another 
thing. It means that everything that was contrary 
to the Holy Ghost was pushed out. 

Remember that these one hundred and twenty were 
not the apostles only. Mary, the mother of Jesus, 
was there, and other women as well as men, and they 
had all been converted before. It is awfully absurd 
to talk about these people being just then converted. 
But wasn't Peter a backslider? Not at all. Jesus 
took special pains to restore him, and clinched his 
heart forever by that repeated question, " Lovest thou 
me?" Many persons get down and pray for a baptism 
of the Holy Ghost who no more think of getting it 
than of flying to the moon. Others think it is to feel 
happy. That is not it at all, not by ten thousand 
leagues. Others think it is a sort of unction that 
comes on some people to help them to preach. Not 
at all. You can be filled with the Holy Ghost and 



THE FOUR OUTPOURINGS OF THE SPIRIT. 5o 

be asleep. You can be filled with the Holy Ghost and 
have the headache so bad that you can't talk. Some 
think it is to "get a blessing." Why, don't you know 
that the apostles had a wonderful time casting out 
devils, and healing the sick, and then- had a dispute 
about who should be elected to go to General Con- 
ference ; that is, about who should be the greatest in 
Jesus' council. The baptism of the Holy Ghost comes 
into the soul, and cleanses and keeps that soul pure 
and sweet and calm. That's ten thousand times more 
than getting " a blessing " ; ten thousand times more 
than being filled with emotion. It is a person, breth- 
ren; and when you get filled with the Holy Ghost 
you get filled with a Divine Person ; a thoughtful, 
secure, almighty, powerful Spirit that moves you to do 
His will. That is what the apostles received. 

Many people think that is the only Pentecost on 
record, and when you talk about four, people get afraid. 
But you will find that this same thing took place with 
the humble Samaritans in the eighth chapter of Acts. 
Philip went down and preached, and they had a won- 
derful revival. Some people there were possessed of 
the devil. The Bible calls things by their proper 
names, in plain unsophisticated language. We do not 
talk that way nowadays. If Jesus came to the earth 
now He would find plenty of people on Chestnut 
Street here in Philadelphia possessed with the devil. 



56 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

Somehow demons get into people's hearts. I've seen 
people foam and gnash their teeth under the best of 
revival fire. Well, Philip cast the devils out, and this 
shows what kind of a revival they had. Now, just 
a few weeks after, the apostles heard of it, and sent 
Peter and John to look after this young church; and 
they prayed with them that they might receive the 
Holy Ghost. Not that they might be converted; not 
at all. There had been "great joy" amongst them 
already, and joy is an unspeakable element in every 
young convert's heart. Not that they might get "a 
blessing." No, they prayed specifically and distinctly 
that they might receive the Holy Ghost, and after 
they had laid hands on them, they were all filled with 
the Spirit and spoke with tongues and prophesied. 
Let us not miss the lesson which is taught here. 
Here was a new church so happy that every one was 
rejoicing. They had been the servants of God, and 
were filled with happiness ; but now, right in their 
new-found joy, these apostles came and prayed for them 
that they might receive the Holy Ghost. 

Some one asked Beecher years ago, when he was 
more sensible and when he was younger and when he 
had religion, what was the best way to bring about a 
revival ; and he replied, " If you want to have a revival, 
read the Acts of the Apostles, and do as they did, and 
you will have a revival." Exactly, and when he went 



THE FOUR OUTPOURINGS OF THE SPIRIT. 57 

by that guide and not by Huxley, he had revivals too 
in his church. Now here was a church not more than 
six weeks old that received this wonderful baptism. 
Oh, if I only had received that soon, after I was con- 
verted! I began holding meetings and working at 
once ; but if in about six weeks or so, some feter and 
John had come and taught me, and led me on into 
the specific baptism of the Holy Ghost that takes away 
the evil elements that lurk down in the heart, it would 
have saved me a thousand slips and sorrows. People 
need some quickening book, or meeting, a companion- 
ship to help them on in the way. 

Notice that Peter and John are not recorded to have 
said one word in prayer, except for this one great 
bestowment. It was definite prayer, definite instruc- 
tion, and definite work. When people say, " Don't 
bother young converts about the baptism of fire," they 
had better read the Acts of the Apostles. Do you 
know that young Christians are the very ones who can 
seek this full baptism. When the best church members 
live many years and do not seek this baptism, they 
form chronic habits. They form the habit of neglect- 
ing secret prayer, and neglect the reading of the Bible ; 
and some form the habit of backsliding, and getting 
alarmed and saying, "I must get closer to God." But 
they soon go back again, and thus form a chronic habit 
of going forward and then backward. Some have a 



58 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

chronic habit of grumbling, others a chronic habit of 
distrust. Young converts believe that God counts the 
hairs of their heads, but they soon grow up and become 
philisophical, and skeptical, and think God can take 
care of the seven stars, but not of their little things. 

"When were you converted, brother?" " Ten years 
ago ? " " Well, are you saved now ?" You hope so ! 
Chronic doubt ; don't you see ? It is absolutely essen- 
tial, when we are converted, to take the examples 
given us in the Bible and be in the apostolic succes- 
sion. I believe in the apostolic succession ; in believ- 
ing as the apostles believed, and praying as they prayed, 
and acting as they acted. If you want to follow the 
example of the apostles settle it to-night, that God's 
Word requires you to go on to a personal Pentecost. 

The next outpouring of the Holy Ghost you will 
find described in the tenth chapter of Acts. It 
was upon Romans, — Cornelius and his household. 
Some people try to make out that Cornelius had 
never been converted. But if he was not converted, 
please show me the man who is. He was a " devout 
man " ; that is equivalent to saying that he had 
religion. He "feared God"; that is the same as 
declaring that he loved God. " They that feared 
the Lord spoke often one to another." He "gave 
much alms." This does not prove him to be a 
converted man, but is a concomitant of true religion. 



THE FOUR OUTPOURINGS OF THE SPIRIT. 59 

He " prayed to God always" Will you show me 
si man in Philadelphia who has all these and yet 
is not converted? But that is not all. He had a 
vision and an angel visited him ; and then Peter says 
plainly that he was " accepted with God." But 
the climax of proof comes after all this, for Peter 
goes on to say, " The word which God sent unto 
the children of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus 
Christ: that word, I say, ye know." Peter declared 
that Cornelius knew the word of peace in Jesus 
Christ. I wish that before I received the "second 
blessing " I had come up to all that. It is sad, but it 
is comical to see how people will go right over the 
statements of the Holy Ghost and say that this man 
was a heathen. Now while Peter preached to them 
the Holy Ghost fell upon them, and the Jews were 
astonished, for they had thought that they were the 
only ones to receive this great baptism. Notice 
that though Cornelius had no tongue of hre on his 
head, yet he spoke with tongues and magnified 
God. He told the experience which he felt within 
himself. 

The fourth occurs in the nineteenth chapter of 
Acts. Apollos was at Corinth, and Paul came to 
Ephesus and found some twelve disciples to whom 
he put at once the question, " Have ye received the 
Holy Ghost since ye believed?" To which inquiry 



60 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

they made answer, "We have not so much as heard 
whether there be any Holy Ghost." Now let us 
look at this in a common-sense way. They had 
heard of the Spirit of God, for the Old Testament 
was full of references to that. But they had not 
heard of a definite outpouring of the Holy Ghost as 
a person. Apollos had been their minister — a good 
one, for he was " instructed in the way of the Lord," 
but he himself had been led into a deeper experi- 
ence by Aquila and Priscilla, Paul's traveling 
companions. They heard Apollos preach, and saw 
that he had not received the baptism of the Holy 
Ghost, so they took him and " expounded unto him 
the way of the Lord more perfectly." In a short 
time Paul came to Ephesus to see this infant church. 
Apollos had gone, and Paul met the disciples. 
He could tell by the way they prayed and testified 
that they had not received the Holy Ghost, so he 
asked them, and received the reply that they had 
not heard of such a thing. They had been listening 
to sermons to prove that Jesus was the Messiah. 
But now Paul prayed for them, and suddenly they 
received the baptism of fire and spoke with tongues 
and prophesied. 

Twenty years after Paul wrote a letter to these 
very Ephesians, and referred to this very event in 
their history. He says in Eph. 1 : 13, " In whom 



THE FOUR OUTPOURINGS OF THE SPIRIT. 61 

ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, 
... in whom also, after that ye believed, ye were 
sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise." 

Now, it is interesting to see how the blessed Holy 
Ghost was poured out on every branch of the 
Christian Church, to show that wherever the gospel 
of Christ was preached and received, there the 
whole work was to be done, and the baptism of the 
Holy Ghost was to follow. 

I trust God will open every heart here, and that 
every one may put himself into the attitude in 
which you may be cleansed and filled with the 
Holy Ghost. If we want to get to heaven we must 
have the whole Trinity. The way to be in perfect 
time with God, is to have repentance toward God 
here, faith in Jesus Christ here, and the baptism of 
the Holy Ghost here, and thus be fitted to live and 
to die. 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE WAY TO OBTAIN. 

[Reported by R. K. C] 

"What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye 
receive them, and ye shall have them/' — Mark 11: 21. 

YOU will perceive at once that this applies equally 
to the penitent seeking pardon, and the believer 
seeking a clean heart; and may also be used by 
people seeking health or the salvation of friends. The 
word " things " is in the plural, and may therefore 
include all the urgent needs of a human soul. What 
things ye desire, believe, and ye shall have. 

Brethren, of all hindrances in the way of our getting 
saved, the most common is the persistency with which 
we reverse the divine order. We are the blindest of all 
beings in the universe. We are ignorant and helpless. 
The human mind has been reversed. When God saves 
your soul, he has to turn your mind around and 
turn your thoughts around and turn your heart 
around and reverse your whole being. God's order 
is repent, and then believe. It is first justification 

62 



THE WA Y TO OBTAIN. 63 

and then regeneration, and then the knowledge of it. 
It takes some of us a long time, for we weep and pray 
and strive to reverse the order. The very first thing 
some people want, before they have shed a tear, is the 
witness of God's Spirit, and that is the last thing they 
get. When they get the Spirit they think they will 
then believe ; and when they believe they will repent. 
If you could be among the angels and see the 
absolute awkwardness with which a human soul 
tumbles around in the dark, what a revelation it would 
be to some of you. It is strange that a believer seeking 
a clean heart is just as awkward about it as any sinner 
seeking pardon. But he is. Notice how they begin. 
You find people as cold as the Arctic regions getting 
down to pray for a baptism of the Holy Ghost. Why, 
they are a thousand miles away from such an experience 
as that. There are a great many things to be done in 
their hearts before they can receive the Holy Ghost. 
In seeking this baptism the first thing is to apprehend 
God's will to bestow it, the next step is faith ; the next 
is a clean heart, and the next is the baptism of the 
Holy Ghost. But people want the baptism of the 
Holy Ghost before they have a clean heart, and they 
want a clean heart before they die out to self. 
Mr. Wesley says, "the same truth which applies to a 
person seeking justification, applies to a person seeking 
sanctification, on a higher plane." The blunders we 



64 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

make in seeking sanctification, are the veiy same 
blunders we made as sinners when seeking justification. 
My text tells how to get your prayers answered : 
"What things ye desire, believe ye receive them, and ye 
shall have them." This is God's order for every seeker. 
Don't expect to be converted till you repent and 
believe. Don't insist on getting the witness till you 
have clone the others. Don't pray for the baptism but 
begin at the other end. 

Now there are three words I want to explain : things, 
pray, and believe. The word thing and the word think 
are the same in the Anglo-Saxon. A thing is whatever 
you can think. Whatever your mind can grasp is a 
thing; it is a think. Whatever your thoughts appre- 
hend, is something that you think. It is a perception. 
You are driving at a definite point. John Fletcher 
says of the mistake of his time, " The reason why 
believers in England do not receive the blessing of 
perfect love is that they do not aim at it." In order 
to hit anything you must have a mark. That 's the way 
our fathers put the truth. My friend, in order to get 
your prayers answered, the first great essential is that 
you get a definite thought in your mind. Unless you 
can think of what you want; unless there is a definite 
point to aim at, your prayer will be rambling, and you 
can't tell whether you have made any advance or not. 
Jesus said to the blind man, "What shall I do for 



THE WAY TO OBTAIN. 6$ 

you ? " This forced him to hit the nail on the head, 
and to tell his exact need with his own tongue : " Lord 
that I may receive my sight." That was not a rambling 
prayer, running all around creation, with a home in 
heaven at last. People wonder why their experience is 
like an Indian summer day, smoky, so mixed. Well, 
your prayers are hazy. If you have a distinct aim, and 
a distinct thought, you will have a definite experience. 
Jesus never answered a rambling prayer. The 
woman said, "My daughter is possessed of a devil." 
Mary and Martha said, " Lord if thou hadst been here, 
my brother had not died." The leper prayed, " Lord, if 
thou wilt, thou canst make me clean." You can't find 
any samples of these rambling prayers which so many 
people offer up when they want salvation. When you 
get in such downright earnest that you pray, " O Lord, 
if I don't have salvation I shall go right down to hell," 
then you hit the nail on the head every time, and you 
can believe when you pray. But when you ask for a 
"deeper work of grace," and for "more and more," you 
don't know what you are driving at, and the Lord don't 
know what you are driving at, and you don't get that 
prayer answered very much. A lady has been seeking 
the Lord for three weeks, but this afternoon she said, 
" Lord, I must have a clean heart." I said, " thank God, 
you will soon get it," and in a few minutes God 
answered her prayer, and she arose and testified to 
having received a clean heart. 



66 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

If you had a carpenter who hammered away and only 
hit the nail once in twenty times, you would discharge 
him. You will never get a clean heart till you change 
your prayers. You must form a definite conception of 
your need. "What things soever ye desire." Jesus 
says you must have something in your mind ; something 
you can think. I prayed for years and j^ears for a 
deeper work of grace, and got hungry, but I did not 
then seek a clean heart. Be definite, definite. Some 
of you have had the desire to get rid of the inward sin 
of the natural heart. You have prayed : O Lord, give 
me more patience. Now that word " more " cannot be 
bounded. There is no limit to it. It is not in the 
positive or superlative degree. It is in that middle 
ground where it can swing back and forth. The mind 
does not grasp a definite experience when you pray for 
"more" or "deeper." The word "deeper" never 
touches the bottom. You never will get your prayers 
answered till you strike bottom and get deepest. 

If you pray for a " higher life," who knows how high 
you want to go? How high? There's a vagueness in 
such a prayer. But when you ask God to give you a 
complete salvation, that is plain. If you get the highest 
life, that touches heaven, that is definite and clear. 
Don't you see how you and I have hindered some one ? 
I never did get out till I brought my prayer down to a 
point, and concentrated all my artillery at one place, 



THE WAY TO OBTAIN. 67 

and let loose the contents of my panting, hungry soul, 
and all my focused brain and heart and mind and soul 
on a single mathematical point. And then, I tell you, 
the fire came. 

You take the sunshine, this warm Indian summer 
day, and concentrate it with a glass, and you can burn 
your house down with it. These scattered prayers 
never burn up your old sinful nature. Lord, teach us 
hew to pray ! When you concentrate all on one 
point, God Almighty will send lightning through your 
soul and set you on fire. Now pick out your need, 
and pray for it. Do you want pardon ? Then pick it 
out and pray for it. Here is a sinner who steals seven 
times a week. Shall he pray to be made better ? 

Why, conversion don't make men merely better; 
it makes them over again. You take any sinner, 
whether outrageous or decent, and he will be about 
ready for that prayer, — make me better. But when 
a sinner gets converted, it means to tear down old 
things and to give him a brand-new heart, and make 
him a new creature in Christ Jesus. And when you 
pray definitely for conversion or for a pure heart, you 
wil] be answered. 

" Desire.'' When you pray, the fervor of the prayer 
depends upon the intensity of the desire. That is 
the keystone of the arch. 

"Prayer is the soul's sincere desire, 
Uttered or unexpressed." 



68 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

The prayer is the utterance of the desire. I would 
like to explain the nature of prayer. When you 
first pray you begin faintly. But you have a desire 
which the Holy Ghost begets in your heart for a certain 
thing. Now when that desire is kindled in your heart, 
if you will keep your mouth and your mind shut 
tight, and never move or stir, that desire will smolder, 
and in twenty-four hours or less, it will die out alto- 
gether, and you cannot find it. But now here is the 
philosophy of prayer : If you begin to utter that desire, 
and open your mouth in prayer, and then use your feet, 
and go to the altar; if you begin to let loose, and 
allow the desire to get clear expression ; if you will 
begin to ventilate that desire, it will grow on you and 
grow on you till it becomes a consuming desire and 
cries, " I will not let thee go except thou bless me." 

When you bring two bodies together in space, each 
attracts the other, and as they approach the attraction 
marvelously increases by action and reaction, and they 
move faster and faster. You can take a cent, and by 
doubling it only twenty-seven times you will be a mil- 
lionaire. That 's the way God works through the Holy 
Ghost in our hearts. You have a desire ; you utter it, 
and it doubles 5 you utter that, and it doubles again , 
and before long you get where you will not let go ; and 
then you get converted or sanctified. A sinner prays, 
and prays, and says, " I can't sleep." That is the place 



THE WAY TO OBTAIN. 69 

of blessing. Do you know you can pray a prayer a 
thousand times bigger than you are ? When you pray a 
prayer that is inspired by the Holy Ghost, that is larger 
than you are ; and when you pray such a prayer it is 
always answered. 

Go back with this illustration and see how it was 
with Elijah praying for rain. Abraham said, "I've 
got the answer." He did not care anything about four 
hundred years. He laid down to rest in the cave of 
Machpelah with God's answer in his heart. 

When you get where you seek anything with all 
your heart, then God says, " That will do." A Swedish 
girl came to this country and tramped around seeking 
employment for a long time, while her old mother was 
praying for her at home. And the very day and hour 
that she obtained a situation her mother in Sweden 
received the answer in her heart, and knew that she 
was provided for. When you pray a perfect prayer 
you will get the answer. Elijah got it. Paul got it. 
You have had it, and I have had it. We begin with 
one-tenth of the heart, and after a time we put in eight- 
tenths, and nine-tenths, and then ten-tenths, and the 
answer comes. Not long ago a sister began to pray, 
and she prayed for the church, for a revival ; and I 
know she needed a blessing herself. Then she prayed 
for me, and for the town, and I said, " She is scattering 
shot badly." But after a time the Lord touched her 



70 Love abounding. 

heart and she broke down, and cried, and said, " Lord, 
bless me and give me a clean heart." I thought, now 
she has come home. . And the next day the answer 
came, and light from heaven flashed upon her. 

When you light a stove, and there is a little blaze, if 
you shut the draft off, it will soon die. You must open 
the draft. When people are only able to pray feeble 
prayers, if they will turn on the draft, and keep their 
minds open, and their mouths open, after a time their 
hearts will be hot with the desire, and then the answer 
will come. That is what Christ meant when He said 
" desire." A wish that, like Aaron's rod, swallows up 
all other desires. 

" Receive." The New Version says, "Believe ye have 
received." The American revisers did not agree with 
that change, as you can see from their notes. I will 
explain how it found favor in England. In England 
there is a large element in the churches everywhere 
that believes in imputed holiness ; people who hold 
that you were all converted and sanctified in Christ 
eighteen hundred years ago. You are simply to believe 
this, and Christ will cover you all over with His per- 
sonal robe. And that nonsense spreads all around. 
Now, don't you see that " believe you have received " 
contains a distinct trace of that doctrine ? But, thank 
God, it is an incorrect translation, for the Greek word 
" receive " is present aorist tense and always means 



THE WAY TO OBTAIN. 71 

instantaneousness. Believe that ye do this instant 
receive : that is the exact meaning. Not that yon had 
it yesterday without knowing it, not that yon are 
going to get it in the future, but right while you are 
panting and yearning and praying; not that He did for- 
give, for that would be untrue ; not that He will for- 
give, for that would not be practicable. The Bible 
teaches a present, instantaneous salvation everywhere. 

Now while you pray, just fling up your hands like a 
man shot in a battle, and say, " Lord, I believe you do 
forgive me now. I believe that the blood of Jesus 
Christ cleanseth me from all sin." Singular number. 
Your sins were all taken away in conversion, but sin is 
singular. He "cleanseth," — not did cleanse, nor shall 
cleanse. "But I don't think I am saved." I would 
rather trust an ounce of faith than a ton of thinking. 
It is not think or feel, but believe. You cannot depend 
on feeling. I had a lady in my church who got 
wonderfully happy and said, " I feel I have a blessing." 
But when the emotion was gone she was all in the 
dark. I said, " The next time you will get the blessing 
on naked faith, and then you will keep it." And in two 
weeks she was up and said, "Witness or no witness, I 
am the Lord's " ; and she stood like a rock as long as I 
knew her. 

Brother, make up your mind, I '11 pick out what I 
want and I will seek it and seek it with my whole 



72 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

heart, and claim it, and stick there. I live day by day, 
hour by hour. He cleanseth, He cleanseth. If you 
want to live free from all anxiety and all worry and 
all fret, act on these simple words of Christ, "What 
things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye 
receive them, and ye shall have them." 



CHAPTER VII. 

THE TWO VEILS. 
[Reported by R. K. C] 

IN Hebrews, — tenth chapter, nineteenth to the twenty- 
fourth verses, — you have one of those marvelous 
golden blocks of Bible truths. The Bible is composed 
of thousands of miniature Bibles. You will find 
certain blocks of truth in it, and in each block you 
will find a miniature gospel. So if some poor fellow 
should only succeed in getting hold of one of these 
blocks, he would have enough to convert and 
sanctify and glorify him. 

The apostle has four great arguments in the 
Hebrews on perfection. The first is drawn from 
the crossing of the Red Sea and the crossing of the 
Jordan, and fills two chapters. The Red Sea 
represents conversion. The Jordan represents sancti- 
fication. And the entering the promised land 
represents the baptism with the Holy Ghost. When 
he finishes that argument, he takes up another, the 
priesthood. Believers now are advanced to an 
equality with Aaron, in the Old Testament. People 



74 LOVE ABOUNDING, 

sometimes think that Jesus took the place of Aaron, 
but this is a great mistake. Paul says Jesus took 
the place of Melchizedek, and that you and I are 
to take the place of Aaron. That is a strong 
argument for entire sanctification ; we are advanced 
to the priesthood. Then there is a third argument, 
and that is founded on the two veils of the tabernacle 
and temple. The first represents conversion and 
the second represents sanctification. People say they 
do not see anything in the Bible about a "second 
blessing." "Well, there is a second benefit spoken 
of in Corinthians, and the second veil in Hebrews. 
After these the apostle has a fourth argument on 
the two pentecosts, that received at Mount Sinai 
and the other received on Mount Zion. 

Some years ago, soon after I was sanctified, one 
night after I had gone to bed, the Holy Ghost took 
the Epistle to the Hebrews and opened it to me in 
such a wonderful manner that I couldn't sleep for 
three hours. Some people think anything like that 
is fanaticism, but I tell you that if you get the Holy 
Ghost, God means that you can understand the 
Bible. How many there are who think they can- 
not understand the deep things of God ! God can 
make the Bible as plain to you as it was to Paul, 
up to your capacity. The Bible is not merely a 
book for learned men, but for you, and the Holy 
Ghost can make it as plain as .the daylight. 



THE TWO VEILS. 75 

Now the first veil signifies conversion. Here is the 
proof. In chapter nine, sixth verse, we read, " The 
priests went always into the first tabernacle, accom- 
plishing the service of God." That's conversion — 
the service of God accomplished. . But the high 
priest only went into the second veil once a year. 
Now it is into this second veil that Paul wants 
us to enter; and for which he exhorts us to have 
boldness, to claim the right, the privilege, of our 
position before God. There is not a child who is 
not entitled to enter this veil. No Christian on earth 
is living up to his privileges or duties who is not 
entirely sanctified. If you had a million dollars 
left you, how long would you leave it unclaimed? 
You would not neglect it. But people neglect God's 
gifts and go around with a cold, formal experience 
when Jesus Christ has died and left you a wondrous 
legacy, and Paul says you have a right to it. You 
have as much right to go within the second veil as 
ever Aaron had. " Let us have boldness to enter 
into the holiest." That means "perfecting holiness." 
Many Christians make a great mistake in supposing 
that they cannot get holiness at all till they are 
wholly sanctified. But it is a doctrine of the 
Methodist Church that every converted person is 
partially sanctified. The Bible calls every converted 
person holy, but not perfect. The apostle says you 



76 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

have entered a holy place, — conversion is holy, — but 
now he wants you to enter the. completion of this 
work. How do you enter? By the blood of Jesus. 
Not by your own good works, not because you have 
grown better by degrees, but by the simple blood 
of Christ. Now let me show you the force of the 
metaphor. 

The tabernacle was a parallelogram cut in two. 
The forward part was the holy place, and in it was 
the table of shew bread, the altar and the candlestick. 
A very heavy and thick curtain completely separated 
this portion of the tent from the holiest of all, in 
which were the ark, containing the ten commandments, 
the rod and the pot of manna. Every day the 
priests went into the holy place, within the first 
veil, and accomplished the service of God; but only 
once a year the high priest went within the second 
veil on the great day of atonement. Now this most 
holy place was dark inside. No lamp, no candle, 
no sunlight; all were excluded by the thick curtain. 
At certain seasons God would blaze out from 
between the wings of the cherubim, and thus the 
only light in the second veil was the Shekinah. 
In the first veil there was a mixedness of light; 
lamplight and daylight. But in the second veil there 
was no light at all except that which shone from God 
Himself. 



THE TWO VEILS. 77 

In a converted state you have mixed light. Is 
not that true? In a converted state you have mixed 
motives, mixed love, mixed faith ; love mixed with 
hate, faith mixed with doubt, patience mixed with 
impatience, the light of the Holy Ghost mixed with 
your own ideas, and culture and brains and notions 
of propriety. And that 's the way you live as long 
as you stay simply in a converted state. And that 
is where most Christians are. But now mark ! In 
the second veil you leave all mixedness behind, and 
get where you are either in absolute darkness or else 
God Himself must enlighten you. When you go 
in there you shut out the light of science and 
philosophy and mere brains and carnal reason, and 
you say, " I am coming alone to Thee, O God ; and if 
Thou dost not enlighten me I am in Egyptian dark- 
ness." And that is where God wants you to get, where 
you will depend on Him, and not upon secondary causes. 

David felt so once. When a holy Christian ceases 
to depend on self, and to depend on the laws of 
nature, and to depend on his kinsfolk, and rests in 
God alone, he can pray as David did, when he cried, 
" Thou that dwellest between the cherubims, shine 
forth"." Brother, God wants to get you where you 
will be illuminated by the Holy Ghost without any 
other conflicting light whatever. In this second veil if 
the Lord does not enlighten you, you are left in Egyptian 



78 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

darkness. That explains some of your experiences at 
times. You have been sanctified, and yet you were in 
darkness apparently denser than when you were seeking 
conversion. Why is this? you ask. I can't see an 
inch before my face. Exactly, that is because God 
is getting you away from candles and lamps, in order 
that you may depend alone upon Him. Those who 
live in the second veil, if not enlightened by God 
Himself, are the most ignorant people on earth. Why ? 
Because they have bidden farewell to all candles and 
lanterns and will-o'-the-wisps of any kind whatever. 
I would rather trust God in the dark than walk in 
the light of a human lamp. I would rather trust God 
in the dark than trust the old Adam in the light. 
No matter if you are in the dark. Do not be scared. 
God is there in the dark with you, and the first 
thing you know He will shine forth. 

Another point about the second veil is this : the high 
priest had to take off his shoes when he went within it, 
and he went in trembling. Within the first veil he 
could have the other priests with him, — as long as he 
remained in the holy place he had plenty of company ; 
but within the second veil he must go by himself. 
When }^ou get sanctified you make up your mind to fol- 
low God alone, whether anybody else will do so or not. 
When converted you can club up as it were. I have 
seen four or five young men wait on one another, and 



THE TWO VEILS. 79 

finally all start for the altar in company ; and after they 
got there the Spirit worked in their hearts, and they 
were converted. But when you seek sanctification that 
won't do. You must make up your mind to say, " I in- 
tend to give myself everlastingly and eternally to God's 
will, and I will go alone if necessary, and by God's 
grace not slip." You must go alone, as if you were 
the only one on earth. 

It required courage in the high priest to enter within 
that veil. If he did anything amiss he would be killed. 
I tell you it made him tremble, going in where nobody 
could follow him, and where he might be stricken down 
a corpse in a moment of time. A feeble man who says, 
" I can't, I can't," will never get to heaven or anywhere. 
You must say, " I am going and if God wants to kill 
me, Amen ! I am going." People think of the guillo- 
tine and the thumb screw and the bonfire when you 
speak of the difficulty of serving God. But do you 
know that it takes as much courage to really serve God 
in Philadelphia as it did in the old inquisition times ? 
To go around in plush parlors and in fine society and 
let it be known that you are in for entire sanctification 
is a hard thing. There is hardly one in five hundred 
who will not turn and minimize under such circum- 
stances. How few serve God with all the heart and 
never flinch ! You may think I am talking too high, 
but I tell you this temporizing is the great sin of the 



80 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

Christian Church. People are afraid to shout hallelu- 
jah ! They are afraid of everything religious, afraid to 
talk in a loud tone of voice. But these very people 
can go to a theater and see all hell let loose on the 
stage for half the night, and not faint in the least. I 
tell you it takes courage to stand up for a clean gospel 
and a full salvation. 

I have had a friend come to me and say : " Brother 
Watson, you ought to tone down." If I had taken such 
advice I would have gone into utter darkness. Don't 
say it is too dark and you are afraid to go in.. Fletcher 
and Wesley went in, Madame Guyon went in, Brainerd 
went in. " Oh, but I am afraid, I'm afraid." Afraid 
of what ? Afraid that God might put fire in you ? 
Dr. Steele, one of the most polished men in the world, 
prayed for sanctification for three weeks, and the 
thought kept coming up, "Now if God sanctifies you 
He'll make you act oddly," and he was afraid ; afraid he 
might have to shout in the street cars, or do some other 
singular thing. At length the Spirit said to him, 
" Don't you think that God has as good a sense of what 
is right as you have ? Don't you think God knows as 
much about good behavior as you do ? Do you think 
God will do anything foolish ? " And he saw that it 
was only a temptation, and he let loose everything, and 
God baptized him with the Holy Ghost so wonderfully 
that he could hardly eat or sleep for several days. And 



THE TWO VEILS. 81 

let me tell you, he has been one of the best behaved 
men you ever saw since that time, and has not done 
anything at all foolish. 

The high priest did not dare to enter, the second veil 
without the blood. The lamb was slain outside, and 
he took the blood and went in and sprinkled the blood 
on the mercy seat. And that is the only way for you 
and me to go in. We must go with the precious 
blood of Jesus, " through the veil, that is to say, his 
flesh." Ah, yes ! the veil is Christ's flesh, the ark is 
Christ's body, and in it was hidden the manna, and 
that is Christ's heart. When you are converted you 
live on manna that falls on the ground ; but when you 
get into the second veil you eat the " hidden manna," 
which was put in the ark. That " hidden manna," as 
it is called in Revelation, is the inner life of Christ. 

Yonder is Christ, crucified on Calvary, and here is 
Mount Zion crowned with its magnificent temple, 
and in the temple is the veil. It is just three o'clock 
in the afternoon. Yonder is a Roman soldier with 
spear in hand, gashing and rending the flesh of the 
Son of God ; and at the same moment the old Jewish 
priest is going into the second veil with the blood of 
the lamb he has just slain. Suddenly an angel rent 
that veil from top to bottom. It meant this : That 
veil was the flesh of Jesus, and at three o'clock it was 
rent by the Roman. That was the real ; this the figure. 



82 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

And through this rent everybody could look in and see 
the holiest of holies. In like manner, when Jesus' 
flesh was rent, every child of God had the privilege to 
enter, exactly where the spear went in. When you get 
converted you come up to Christ, and His blood falls 
upon you ; but when you are sanctified you enter into 
His " interior life," as Upham expresses it. 

O friends, how few there are who know the inner 
life of our Lord ! You talk of the beauty of the life 
of Christ, or the life of Christ, but what do you know 
about His inner life? Jesus was calm. Jesus was 
never angry. Jesus was never in a hurry. Jesus was 
never despondent. Jesus was patient and meek. What 
do you know about His inner life ? If you want to 
live this inner life you must get away from the noise 
and tumult of sin within you. What a paradise it is 
to get away from your sins, and away from your 
heartaches, and away from your troubles, and away 
from fault-finding. 

What a perfect paradise it is to get away from the 
noise and deceitfulness of this wicked world, and be 
hidden in the calm, and the peacefulness, and the ever- 
lasting fidelity of the inner life of Jesus. Oh, I wish, 
dear Christ, that Thou wouldst open Thy wounded side 
so wide to-night, that some sister or brother might 
enter in ! 

Put your soul on the point of the spear, and you can 



THE TWO VEILS. 83 

enter where it entered. But you must have a true heart. 
A true heart is one that is dead set on going through ; 
not merely praying one day and forgetting to pray the 
next, but one that takes hold of the plow handle and 
never lets go till the furrow is driven. A heart with 
no deceitful philosophy, and no double mind, but with 
one desperate purpose to go through with the whole 
thing, and to do it now. To such a heart will always 
be given the " full assurance of faith," and a perfect 
reliance on Christ alone ; and this heart must be 
" sprinkled from an evil conscience," or cleansed from 
all depravity. 

" Your bodies washed with pure water." Now some 
of you will think I am explaining this wrongly. That 
does not refer to baptism at all — not to water baptism. 
The term " pure water " here means the Word of God. 
In John 3 : 5 we read, " Except a man be born of water 
and of the Spirit "; but that don't refer to water baptism. 
It means, except a man be born of the truth of God and 
of the Spirit. The Scripture speaks of God's Word drop- 
ping like the dew or the rain. The Word of God is 
often compared to water. Your inner nature is washed 
by blood, but your outward life is cleansed by the 
Word of God. I will show you how to distinguish in 
this matter. Here is a man who chews and smokes, and 
they are filthy habits. He seeks a clean heart, and the 
Word of God comes into that man's mind and com- 



84 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

mands him to be clean. He laj^s aside his pipe, and 
throws away his tobacco. Why? The Word of God 
makes him do it. That is being washed by the Word. 
Here is a woman covered with jewelry. Now I like to 
see a person well dressed, bnt jewelry is heathenish. 
God knows how to make people look well. But you 
say, "I think jewelry makes people look well." Well, 
now, that is because you are educated wrong. If you 
could go to heaven and learn from the angels a little 
while, you would think differently. Well, this woman 
finds the Word of God condemns her in this vanity, and 
she puts it away. That is being cleansed by the water 
of the Word. Here is a man who has been accustomed 
to take up his Sunday paper after breakfast, but the 
Word of the Lord comes to his heart that he must give 
that up ; and he does it. He is not cleansed by the blood 
from that, but by the Word. Do you know that was 
the meaning of Jesus washing His disciples' feet? Clean 
water represents the Word of God, and when you wash 
a man's feet, it means you cleanse his every day walk 
and manner of life. It was not a streak of old Jewish 
custom at all, but a streak of practical truth for your 
kitchen and parlor and home. 

Finally, you must testify to the possession of an ex- 
perience. "Hold fast the profession of your faith." 
There is one thing that I have not mentioned before on 
purpose. When the high priest went into the second 



THE TWO VEILS, 85 

veil he wore a robe on which were embroidered pome- 
granates and to which were hung golden bells. If you 
cut open a pomegranate you will find it has more seeds 
than any other fruit on earth. It signifies fruitfulness. 
That is God's idea of a fruitful Christian, and the gold- 
en bell was the symbol of testimony. Then the Bible 
says that the bells must be heard: " His sound shall be 
heard lest he die." Exactly, and when you get in the 
second veil you must ring the bell lest you die. You 
must give your testimony. These old things meant the 
outward -life to the Jew, but to us they mean the inner 
life. We must not neglect the " assembling of our- 
selves together," and as we go to prayer or class 
meeting we must ring the bell of testimony, and 
everywhere show by our fruits that we have learned 
to know the fullness of God's salvation. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

THE SPIRIT OF REVELATION. 

"Wherefore I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord 
Jesus, and love unto all the saints, 

"Cease not to give thanks for you, making mention of you in 
my prayers; 

"That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, 
may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the 
knowledge of him : 

"The eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye 
may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches 
of the glory of his inheritance in the saints, 

"And what is the exceeding greatness of his power to usward 
who believe, according to the working of his mighty power, 

"Which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the 
dead, and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places, 

" Far above all principality, and power, and might, and domin- 
ion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also 
in that which is to come : 

"And hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the 
head over all things to the church, 

"Which is his body, the fullness of him that filleth all in all." 
— Eph. 1: 15-23. 



THE difficulty in reading a passage like this is that 
the Apostle Panl particularly, more than any other 
writer, in beginning a long sentence piles in so many 
things, one thought suggesting another and that another 

86 



THE SPIRIT OF REVELATION. 87 

and that another, and he keeps crowding it in and 
crowding it in until the sentence becomes much in- 
volved. That is all one sentence, the whole of it, from 
beginning to end ; there isn't a single stop ; and there 
are so many things crowded into it by the law of 
association that by the time you have finished reading 
the sentence, the entire paragraph, the main thought 
that lies in it is obscured and liable to be overlooked. 
Now the larger part of this sentence or paragraph, from 
the 20th to the 23d verses, is simply thrown in by way 
of explanation. The gist of the whole paragraph is 
this : — 

I pray the Lord that He may give you the spirit of 
wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Jesus, and 
in the knowledge of the hope of your calling, and in 
the knowledge of God's inheritance among the saints, 
and in the knowledge of the exceeding power of God 
toward us. 

That is the substance of the paragraph. This long 
sentence here about " Which he wrought in Christ 
when he raised him from the dead, and set him at his 
own right hand in the heavenly places, . . . and put all 
things under his feet," etc., — that long sentence is 
simply by way of explanation. That is to say, he says, 
I pray God that He may give you the knowledge of 
God's power toward us according to the power that did 
all these things ; and these things which are mentioned 



88 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

there in such detail are simply thrown in to illustrate 
the kind of power he refers to. 

I ask your attention to the four kinds of knowledge, 
or the knowledge of four things mentioned in this 
prayer : The spirit of revelation and of wisdom and of 
knowledge ; and then the knowledge referred to is of 
four things : first, to know Christ ; secondly, to know 
the hope of our calling ; thirdly, to know Christ's riches 
in the saints ; and fourthly, to know the exceeding 
greatness of God's power toward us. All these kinds 
of knowledge come from the Holy Ghost, the spirit of 
wisdom and of revelation. God proposes to give each 
believer a part of the same Spirit that inspired the 
Word of God and that has revealed to us the divine 
counsel. Not that God will inspire any believer now- 
adays to write another Bible ; not that God will inspire 
anyone to write a Bible that is contrary to this Bible ; 
not that the Holy Ghost inspires anything contrary to 
the written Word ; not that. But that the same Spirit 
that inspired this Scripture is to be given to the 
believer, the full believer in Jesus, and that the same 
revelation and the same knowledge that is put down in 
this Book is to be imparted to each believer. So that 
the soul of the believer is to be enlightened by knowl- 
edge and wisdom and revelation from God in harmony 
(in accord) with the written Word. 

There is a difference between the spirit of revelation 



THE SPIRIT OF REVELATION. 89 

and the spirit of wisdom. Revelation is something that 
is made known to us ; wisdom is that divine guidance 
by which we are to utilize that which we know. Rev- 
elation comes to us ; wisdom goes from us. Revela- 
tion is something God makes known to us, but wisdom 
is the divine gift of knowing how to use it. 

Now we must first know something. The new birth 
is a revelation. It is just as great a wonder when a sin- 
ner feels his sins pardoned and feels for the first time 
that God is his Father, and there comes into his soul 
the consciousness that all his sins are gone and God is 
his Father, — it is just as great a marvel and revelation 
to him as if a new Bible had been created and dropped 
down from the skies. It is a revelation. He may have 
read the thing in a book. He may have heard many a 
sermon. He. may have seen people profess to be con- 
verted ; but the new birth is a new, startling revelation 
to everyone who experiences it. 

So is heart cleansing. It is a revelation. You may 
hear a thousand persons testify of a clean heart ; you 
may read a great many books on the subject, read the 
Bible on the subject ; but when for the first time you 
feel the blood of Christ cleansing your heart from all 
sin, it is a world of wonder, it is an amazing revelation 
from God to your soul. It is, so far as you are con- 
cerned, a new world, a new Bible, a new atonement, a 
new marvel ; and so far as you are concerned in that 



90 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

experience, it is just as new as if the cross and ' the 
atonement and salvation had just been made, right on 
the spot, for your benefit. 

So that all spiritual things, the knowledge of Jesus, 
the revelation of the invisible world, the revelation of 
things to come, — all these things must be revealed to 
each believer. God cannot allow us to take salvation 
second hand. Our knowledge must come first hand. 

Now, in the beginning, we are to believe what others 
testify. We are to accept the testimony, we are to 
accept the witnesses, we are to accept historic state- 
ments, we are to accept a great many evidences ; but 
there comes a time and a point when God must reveal 
all these things directly to each soul for itself ; and 
unless we have an individual revelation from the Holy 
Ghost to our own hearts, all the salvation on paper, all 
the salvation on the cross, and all the wonderful things 
God has revealed all down the ages, are utterly worth- 
less to us, unless there comes to each of us a personal 
revelation from God to our own souls. 

These were converted people ; they knew their sins 
were pardoned. He says, " When I heard of your faith 
and of your love," proving that they were converted 
people ; yet he says, " I cease not to give thanks, mak- 
ing mention of you in my prayers." Now here comes 
his prayer : " I pray that you people who believe and 
know the love of G,od may have the spirit of wisdom 
and of revelation in the knowledge of his Son." 



THE SPIRIT OF REVELATION. 91 

Now, the Spirit not only is a Spirit of revelation to 
reveal things to us personally, but it is the Spirit of 
wisdom. Wisdom is that divine gift by which we 
utilize what we know. It is to know how to use our 
experience, to use our faith, to use our testimony, to 
know how to work, to know how to go out for God. 
That requires wisdom. A man may pile up a great pile 
of lumber and stone and brick and mortar upon the 
face of the ground, and you have got the material all 
there for building one of the finest houses in Boston. 
But that -is nothing but a mere heap of rubbish unless 
some person knows how to combine the whole thing 
into a structure. 

Now, wisdom is that gift that knows how to take 
any kind of material and utilize it to the best advan- 
tage ; and so it is just as essential that Christian people 
have the spirit of wisdom ' from God as that they have 
the revelation from God. Because you may have 
abundant revelations made to your own hearts, but if 
there is a recklessness and wildness and extravagance 
and incoherence and no method of utilizing those things, 
it will be like putting a pile of lumber and brick and 
stone down and then not know how to build the house. 

Now we will take up these points. First, the Holy 
Ghost is to reveal to us the knowledge of Jesus Christ. 
"I pray," he says, " that God may give you the spirit of 
wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Christ." 



92 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

The word "knowledge" referred to here does not 
mean what it means in our common conversation. The 
word knowledge ordinarily means information. We 
say a man who has traveled a great deal knows a great 
deal. If a man has read a great many books and trav- 
eled around we feel that he knows a great deal. We 
simply mean he is informed upon certain subjects. But 
the word " knowledge " in the New Testament has a 
meaning far different. It refers to a thing that has 
come within the limits of your own consciousness. It 
is something that the soul has been assured of. When 
the Bible says, "We know that we have passed from 
death unto life "; when the Bible says, "We know 
whom we have believed"; when the Word says, "We 
know all things work together for good," — when the 
Word of God uses this word " knowledge," it refers 
to the certainty of the matter. 

Now, the work of Jesus has been performed in this 
earth. His work is in the past tense, His life and 
death, and He is a being living in a distant world, mil- 
lions and millions of miles away. How can it be that 
a person here living under these circumstances can be 
absolutely certain of the things that took place nearly 
two thousand years ago, regarding a Personality that 
resides, so far as His body is concerned, millions and 
quadrillions of miles from our locality? Yet the Word 
of God continually presents to us this thing of divine 



THE SPIRIT OF REVELATION. 93 

certainty with regard to the knowledge of Jesus Christ. 

The Holy Ghost is omnipresent. He is a divine Per- 
son. And the Holy Ghost is a reality, — just as real 
as we are real, just as conscious as we are conscious, 
just as much a Person as we are persons ; and the Holy 
Ghost can take events which have occurred thousands 
of years ago, and can so certify those events to the con- 
sciousness that we can be as conscious of an event that 
occurred two thousand years ago as we are of an event 
that is just now transpiring. 

Now, right here is the realm of faith. Here is where 
the world does not comprehend — is all in a smoke, a 
mist, a fog, concerning these divine verities. We are 
all the time hearing men treat about Jesus and the 
atonement and His life and Christianity simply from 
the historical standpoint. If you read the sermons that 
come out in the Monday morning papers, you will find 
almost an utter destitution of anything like divine cer- 
tainty in spiritual things. It is a mere belief ; it is a 
mere pretense of things that were said to have taken 
place a long while ago. That is not the Bible way 
of putting spiritual things. The New Testament way 
of putting things is this : That there is abroad in 
the world, in the Church, to-day, the same God that 
made the Bible, the same Holy Ghost that made Cal- 
vary, the same Holy Ghost that made the incarnation 
and that caused the birth of Jesus, and that filled Him 



94 LOVE ABOUNDING, 

at the baptism and in His life, and that inspired His 
words, and the same Holy Ghost through whom the 
Bible says He died — for Jesus died by the help of the 
Holy Ghost. It is said that He through the Eternal 
Spirit offered Himself up unto God; and the same Holy 
Ghost that was with Him in life and that walked with 
Him and was with Him on the cross, and the same 
Holy Ghost that raised Him from the dead, — that same 
Personality is here in Boston to-day and in this earth 
and in these hearts. 

Christian people, church members, men claiming to be 
ministers, — they are all deaf as a stone to these great 
verities. Christ was this and was that, and did this 
and did that. But in the Word of God it is an eternal 
Now. The Holy Ghost is now. And an event that 
took place two thousand years ago can be certified 
to the consciousness of boys and girls, men and women, 
and all people to-day, here and now, so that the 
birth and death and shed blood and resurrection power, 
and the forgiveness and cleansing grace of Jesus, can 
be brought from the bygone ages and certified to our 
consciousness by the very same divine Personality that 
was back there and did the whole thing. And the same 
God that was in Jesus Christ on the cross is here to-day 
to certify to your hearts that Jesus did die, and make 
the death of Christ a reality to your soul. O Lord, 
get us a hundred miles beyond this London fog that 



THE SPIRIT OF REVELATION. 95 

lies on so many brains ! I pray that you may have, 
every one of you, the spirit of wisdom and of reve- 
lation. 

And as to having visions and dreams outside of the 
Bible, that does not mean running off into ghost 
stories and smoke and all that ; but that the very same 
vision there is in this Bible, that the very same vision 
that is on this piece of paper, that that vision may be 
opened up in your heart. So God means that each 
believer shall have a divine vision ; visions that have 
already been made and put on paper, but they are now 
to be transferred to the consciousness. And this word 
" knowledge " means just the knowledge of Jesus 
Christ. The Holy Ghost can make Jesus as sweet to 
your soul as a May morning. Jesus can be as sweet 
and as precious — you can feel Jesus ; you can bow 
down and feel Him right there ; you can feel His sym- 
pathy, you can feel His touch, you can feel sustained 
and comforted by Him, and you can get a glimpse of 
His dispositions. 

You look at the rough, hard, rude, vicious people 
around you, and see how much of iron and tin and earth 
and clay and dirt is in human nature ; and turn right 
away from this gay, greedy, foolish, hard, Satanic 
crowd, and right there find One who is just exactly the 
opposite of all the people who surge our streets. No 
fog, no myth, no smoke, no idealism, no dream. That 



96 LOVE ABOUNDLNG* 

divine Person whose body sits far beyond these tower- 
ing stars, that divine Personality that is enthroned 
above angels and archangels, by the Holy Ghost, can 
multiply Himself into as many pieces or as many times 
as there are individual believers. Jesus, the Rising Sun, 
breaking over the Eastern hills, gleaming out on. the 
broad prairie where ten million dewdrops bespangle 
the grass, is reflected back just as many times as there 
are dewdrops on the prairie. Jesus Christ, by the Holy 
Ghost, can multiply Himself into as many direct spirit- 
ual manifestations as there are believers in the earth ; 
and from ten millions of hearts the bright and morning 
Star will be reflected, reproduced and manifested, by 
that same Holy Ghost that hovered over the Virgin 
Mary and that gave Him His birth, and that lived with 
Him, and hung with Him on the cross. That same 
Holy Ghost can take Him and make Him real. 

I tell you that the world is starving for Jesus, Jesus ; 
the warm, loving, personal Christ. But you take up 
the magazines, and I declare to }^ou, Christ is whittled 
off into a dry shaving. Oh, I pray that you may have 
the spirit of revelation and wisdom in the conscious 
knowledge of Jesus ! 

Now, the next thing to know is to know the hope of 
your calling. " That ye may know what is the hope of 
his calling." The calling is to be saints. Ye are called 
to be saints. That is the calling. We are called to 



THE SPIRIT OF REVELATION. 97 

deny ourselves, to take up our cross and follow Christ. 
That is the calling Christ gave to the apostles, and the 
same calling He gives to us. " If any man will come 
after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, 
and follow me." It is a calling to crucifixion. It is a 
calling to follow Christ in crucifixion and in spiritual 
death. It is a calling to be saints. 

And this calling must come to each believer. It 
must come by the Holy Ghost, a knowledge of the hope 
of this calling. 

Now, you may hear a great many people talk about a 
clean heart and full salvation and the baptism of the 
Holy Ghost. But that must come to every believer in 
your own mind and in your own heart ; a picture that 
must become a thought, a desire; a picture of what you 
want to be. My calling will not be for you, and your 
calling cannot do for your friend. You know the 
affections of your own heart — you know the ailments 
of your own inner life ; and you have — every child of 
God has — a picture in mind of what is meant by a 
clean heart. If any man stands up and talks to a 
thousand people about a pure heart, a heart cleansed 
from depravity and the carnal mind, perhaps no two 
in that crowd will get the same thought or the same 
idea, because the phase of depravity in one person's 
heart is of one type and the phase of depravity in 
another person's heart is of another type 5 and each 



98 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

person, in thinking of what a clean heart is, will 
measure the picture of a clean heart by his own 
diseases and by what he wants himself. So it may 
be that, out of a thousand people, each one will form 
a different conception of what a clean heart is; but 
they all form some thought of what it is. And under 
the preaching of the gospel the Holy Ghost is always 
on hand ; He is always the abiding factor in salvation ; 
and the Holy Ghost is helping people and revealing to 
people, so that when people are willing to yield and 
willing to obey, the Holy Ghost gives to each and every 
one an insight into what it is they need. 

He says, I pray God that you may have the spirit of 
wisdom and revelation, that each one of you may know 
what is the hope of your calling ; that you may not be 
seeking this man's experience or this person's experi- 
ence ; that you may not be guided by what others say 
entirely. Get information as best you can ; but there 
must come to each and every heart a distinct knowledge 
of what this calling is, so that each one will know just 
what they need, just what they want, and under the 
light of the Holy Ghost will go and seek it. 

Now, I have seen wonderful miracles in the inner life. 
You get a crowd of people and get them seeking the 
Lord, and how busy the Holy Ghost must be ; He is 
in each person's heart all the time. Oh, how the Holy 
Ghost will open up to each seeker, as they are pressing 



THE SPIRIT OF REVELATION, 99 

their way to the feet of Jesus and as they are yielding 
and surrendering ! how the Holy Ghost will help their 
infirmities, and give unto them a thought or an idea or 
intimation or insight into just exactly what they need ! 
And under the light of that Spirit they seek, they find ; 
and when they have found the experience, the Holy 
Ghost will baptize it with the right name. 

It is under the light of the Holy Ghost that we seek 
full salvation. It is under the light of the Holy Ghost 
we yield point by point, till the consecration becomes 
entire. It. is under the light of the Holy Ghost that 
we reach believing ground and exercise simple trust in 
Jesus. It is by the Holy Ghost we are cleansed ; He 
applies the blood and the promise. It is by the Holy 
Ghost we are certified that the work is done. 

The next knowledge referred to here is the knowl- 
edge of the riches of the inheritance in the saints. 
" That ye may know what is . . . the riches of the 
glory of his inheritance in the saints." 

How many " knows " there are in the writings of St. 
Paul t Oh, with what certainty he pours out this truth ! 
Now, here is a mine of wealth, a gold mine that very 
few persons have worked very thoroughly. It pans out 
well too. First, to know Jesus ; put Him first. Then 
to know yourself ; you come next to Jesus. And then 
the saints ; they come next to you. You may take a 
piece of this cloth of gold that the Apostle Paul has 



100 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

woven here by the shuttle of God's Spirit, and you may 
just ravel it out, and you will find that the threads of 
gold are put down here right. First, the knowledge of 
Jesus, and then the knowledge of yourself, and then 
the knowledge of the inheritance among the saints. 

How few there are in this world who appreciate good 
people ! With all their faults, with all their infirmities, 
and with all the fallings and blunderings that occur 
here and yonder among the. household of faith, yet 
how few people there are in this world that appreciate 
the saints of God. There is a mine of wealth, untold 
treasures, inestimable jewels, hidden away in the saints of 
God. And yet do you know that the treasures that are 
hidden away in the saints, which are here called, " The 
riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints," — do 
you know that all these riches and this glory of God's 
inheritance in the saints is so hidden and so difficult to 
find and so covered away from worldly sight, that it re- 
quires a special revelation from God to show it to any- 
body? The eagle's eye cannot see it; the sailor's eye 
cannot see it ; newspapers cannot see it ; carnally mind- 
ed Christians cannot see it ; the nominal church cannot 
see it , the world cannot see it ; the devil and his 
angels cannot see it ; nay, the angels of God cannot see 
it until it is revealed unto them by the Holy Ghost. So 
many homely things, so many odd things, so many 
queer things ! God allows His people to have a great 



THE SPIRIT OF REVELATION. 101 

many infirmities ; and somehow, the more intense people 
become in religion, the more intense they get in their 
spirituality, the more oddities come to the surface. If 
a fellow is a saloon keeper or a lawyer or a worldly 
man or a merchant or a railroad man, he may have 
latent within him all sorts of cranks and oddities, but it 
is covered all over by business, business, business. But 
when men come out from the world and are regenerated 
and then are sanctified, and then baptized with the Holy 
Ghost from on high, it brings them out of the original 
bark and husk of their nature ; it intensifies all their 
natural qualifications, it puts on the edge, and it brings 
out all the latent peculiarities. 

And I will tell you why. The baptism of the Holy 
Ghost makes a man's personality come out. The great 
mass of the world have no personality. People's faces 
are like a plate of lard, with a cross for the mouth and 
a ridge for the nose and two black buttons for the eyes. 
The great mass of individuals are just like that; they 
go with the mass. There is a latent individuality, 
there is a latent peculiarity, personality. God never 
makes two individuals alike ; and under the baptism of 
the Holy Ghost our personal make-up is brought out 
and sharply defined. 

That is why the saints seem odd and seem peculiar. 
It is because their latent personality is brought out by 
the fire of the Holy Ghost. The peculiarities and oddi- 



102 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

ties and idiosjmcrasies and shortcomings and blunders 
and foolish things that would not be recognized in 
business men, the minute they are attached to Chris- 
tians, and especially holiness Christians, right away 
become very conspicuous. There is many a crank 
that is practicing law, many a medical crank, many a 
railroad crank, many a merchant crank, and a great 
many kinds of cranks ; but it is all covered over by 
dollars and cents, and you do not see it. But the 
minute these things come into connection with Christ 
they stand out. 

Now, the Lord God does allow His Church to have a 
great many things that look a little unpleasant, and the 
Lord allows the work of holiness to go on with a great 
many drawbacks, a great many imperfections, a few 
fanatics here and there, people backsliding and losing 
their experience, and sometimes awfully stingy men pro- 
fessing holiness, too stingy to bury themselves decently ; 
and in spite of all these things God Almighty holds us. 
And yet, in spite of all these things, God has right 
among these people a peculiar treasure, called by my 
text "the riches ... of his inheritance in the saints." 

Notice the words, how they are piled up ! " That ye 
may know what is . . . the riches of the glory of his 
inheritance." First, the inheritance, and then the 
glory of the inheritance, and then the riches of the 
glory of the inheritance. 



THE SPIRIT OF REVELATION. 103 

Jesus Christ has no property except in His saints. 
When He left the earth He left no real estate, He left 
no legacy, He left no property, no manuscripts, no relics 
to be sold and scattered around the world. But He left 
a handful of believers. Jesus does not want any stars, 
not any sun nor moon ; He does not want the cattle 
upon a thousand hills ; the only treasure that Jesus 
owns is His saints. He has given the world, He says, 
to His saints; given the world to men; and He has 
made hell for the devil and his angels, and given the 
devil and his angels a warranty deed of every square 
acre of hell, and they can live there forever. And He 
may deed worlds of splendor to angels, and He may give 
Abraham this world, as far as I know. Abraham inher- 
its the world, the Bible says. And Jesus has left Him- 
self without a house and without a home. He lives out 
of doors in the broad universe of God, and all the 
property He has is wrapped up in His saints. And 
right in His own people, — right in the hearts, the char- 
acter, the faith, the obedience, the love, the joy, the 
experiences, the sufferings, the sorrows, the trials, the 
victories, the dying, the resurrection and the glorifying 
of His saints, — there are the riches of Jesus. And 
every saint has, buried away in his moral nature, a 
part of that eternal treasure that is to constitute the 
legacy of Jesus Christ throughout all ages, world 
without end. 



104 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

Oh ! what would this world be but for the riches that 
there are in the saints? You think of all the ages gone 
by; you think of all the martyrs and all the heroes; 
think of the old soldiers and the old officers and the old 
reformers ; think of those old people and young people 
in years gone by, that stood single handed, that revolu- 
tionized empires, that tore down popery, that tore away 
the darkness of the middle ages, that broke through and 
made way for liberty, that suffered and died for the 
rights of conscience and free speech and a free people ; 
you think of these people who wandered " in sheep 
skins, and goat skins, ... of whom the world was not 
worthy " ; these old reformers and these young refor- 
mers, who by the grace of God stood alone and single 
handed, and would rather burn than take back their 
word or refuse to speak out the truth of God. They 
shook the pillars of hell, they brought down the king- 
dom of God, they plowed hell up by the roots with 
the plowshare of God's almighty truth. You think 
of all that, and what would the world be with the 
infidels and sinners, and the so-called preachers to-day 
in this country who blaspheme Jesus and deny the 
blood, and the so-called churches, and the so-called 
colleges and schools, that pretend to be Christian and 
that blaspheme the name of Jesus, that would never 
have had the right to preach as they do if it had not 
been for the grand old sanctified hearts that suffered 



THE SPIRIT OF RE VELA TION. 105 

and bled and died years ago? And every infidel to-day 
in Boston owes all he has to some old sanctified soul 
that suffered years ago that he might have the privilege 
of living and blaspheming Jesus ; and all the liberty 
that sinners and infidels have to-day has come out of 
the sorrows and tears and blood of holy men and holy 
women, and the devil's children owe everything they 
have to the blood- washed. 

Then you think of all the faith of these years for 
thousands of years ; Abraham's faith and the faith of 
all the apostles, and the faith of fathers and mothers 
and friends — people who have believed in God. Just 
suppose you could take all the faith, the hours of test- 
ing, the hours of severe trial, the hours when men be- 
lieved God and held on by a thread, and that thread so 
small they couldn't see it. Think of the hours George 
Miiller has gone through and the hours Charles Cullis 
has gone through and the hours thousands and thou- 
sands of evangelists and ministers and saints have gone 
through, leading a forlorn hope and telling nobody of 
it, but holding on to and believing God when the devil 
was howling and men were preaching and hollow- 
hearted believers discouraging and everything blowing 
the wrong way and the east wind coming in and hell 
let loose, and that man hanging on to God by a thread, 
and that so small you couldn't see it. Now suppose 
you could concentrate all that faith and then just con- 



106 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

vert that into substance, wouldn't you have something 
rich ? The riches of faith, the riches of heroism ! 

And then think of all the love of these years; the 
love that has wept over wicked friends and ungodly 
relatives, the love that suffered and wept and prayed. 
And who has had this love ? God's people. You do 
not find real love among the devil's children. They 
may have their Masonic lodges and they may have their 
Grand Army of the Republic, and they may have 
their tissue bands and all these things that bind men 
together; but I want you to know that the Satanic, 
wicked, sinful heart is a sinful heart, and you may put 
a belt of diamonds around a bad heart but it is bad still. 
You have got to go into God's kingdom and among 
God's children to find the love that comes down from 
the skies. All other love is merely human, merely 
earthly and sensual and devilish. It has made this 
looking out for self. You never find a drop of real 
love that came from God that did not exist in some 
bosom that had been deposited there by the Holy Ghost. 
And all the love that has made modern civilization 
streamed out in the same way. There wasn't a hospital 
on earth until after Jesus died, nor an asylum for 
the insane nor for the poor nor for orphans, until after 
Jesus shed His blood. 

Infidels talk about their progress. There never was 
a hospital on earth built by infidels. They never did 



THE SPIRIT OF RE VELA TION. 107 

anything but grope and grovel and do just what dogs 
can do. I tell you all the good there has' ever been od 
this earth has come out of love born of Jesus Christ 
and the Holy Ghost in human hearts. And if the 
world has any wealth of beneficence or charity, it is 
either directly or indirectly the outgrowth of the love 
of God shed abroad in the hearts of His own saints. 

Now you think of all that love. You think of all the 
glorious camp meetings and conventions and great 
revivals and great meetings in all ages and all times, 
where saints have wept together and sung and prayed 
together. Think of all the fellowships and kindnesses 
and cordiality and the brotherly and sisterly love that 
has baptized this world of ours. It is all a part of the 
riches of His inheritance in the saints. It is in the 
saints. And so I might go on. Riches of heroism, 
riches of faith, riches, of love, riches of knowledge, 
riches of moral enterprise, riches of reform, riches of 
charity to bless the world. Who gathers in the lost? 
Who goes out in the midnight mission ? Who hunts 
up the fallen and the depraved? Who does this work? 
The miserable blasphemer is drinking brandy, smoking 
cigars and toasting his toes, while the sanctified and 
blood- washed are out in the streets toiling and laboring 
to save the lost. I tell you if Jesus Christ were to 
take all His saints out of this world it would rot. 

So, my friends, I present this thought because I want 



108 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

you to appreciate God's people, whether they belong to 
your church or not. I sometimes think we do not love 
one another half we ought to. We are too prone to 
pick out one another's flaws and foibles and faults. 
We are too prone to stumble on this or that man's pecu- 
liarity. Remember, that notwithstanding all these 
faults and all these things that to you may seem 
unpleasant, remember that Jesus Christ has a part of 
His own heart locked up in all these poor creatures. 
Jesus Christ has these riches of the inheritance in the 
saints. 

One more thought. Now, he says, I pray that you 
may not only know all this, not only know Jesus and 
know yourself and know the riches of the inheritance 
of the saints, but that you may know " what is the ex- 
ceeding " — now get out your yardsticks ; now if you 
want to measure a long measure get out the tape lines 
and just measure this; here it is: I pray that you may 
know " what is the exceeding greatness of his power to 
usward who believe." That is the prayer, that is the 
definition: "the exceeding greatness of his power to 
usward who believe." Now he begins to measure it. 
"According." The word " according " means the meas- 
ure, as you measure goods or distances. "According to 
the working of his mighty power, which he wrought in 
Christ, when he raised him from the dead, and set him 
at his own right hand in the heavenly places, far above 



THE SPIRIT OF REVELATION. 109 

all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, 
and every name that is named, not only in this world, 
but also in that which is to come : and hath put all 
things under his feet, and gave him to be the head over 
all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness 
of him that filleth all in all." 

In other words, I want you to have the Holy Ghost 
give to you the knowledge of the power that raised up 
Jesus and put Him in heaven. Now go to Christ's grave 
and stand by that. Now I am going to watch Christ 
arise, and you watch Him rise, and watch Him walk 
the earth; then watch Him as He hurried by angels 
into Paradise, and as He takes the throne, and the 
whole Church is put under Him. Watch that wonder- 
ful procession. And St. Paul is right there with his 
pen. St. Paul says, I pray God that by the Holy Ghost 
you may get the knowledge of that kind of power. 
That is it. I pray God that by the Holy Ghost you 
may get the knowledge of His power to us ward. The 
same power that raised up Jesus and took Him to 
heaven, that same power is directed to us ward, and by 
the Holy Ghost we are to come into the certainty of 
that power. 

Now do you know that power ? First, to be raised up 
out of the grave, the lethargy of unbelief and darkness 
and stagnation ; and then the power to walk in the 
world and yet above the world, and power of the resur- 



110 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

rected life of Jesus. Jesus shed His last tears before 
He died. Jesus had the last throb and the last ache 
and the last pain ; Jesus had His troubles. After He 
came out He had the same soul, the same body, the 
same knowledge ; but now He floated above the world ; 
now He simply paid attention to God and His saints ; 
now He did not meddle with any more troubles or 
sorrows ; now He was above the very things that had 
been placed on Him, as a servant; now He is above 
them; now He walks the earth calmly and serenely. 
He sees men, how they are doing. He knows all the 
soirows and troubles and heartaches tUat are going on 
in this world, but He is calm and serene. 

Dear friends, I grant that in the highest sense we can- 
not physically realize all these things, but there is a 
sense in which we may know that we have been raised 
up with Jesus Christ. There is a sense in which we 
may know the power of God that raised Him from the 
dead, and that makes us calm and serene in the greatest 
turmoil and strife, — the power of the resurrected life of 
Christ; the power that can float about the world; the 
power that can go opposite to gravitation; the power 
that can appreciate Him, and by faith comprehend our 
place with Him at the right hand of God the Father. 

Why, He is going to gather us there. Yonder is our 
home. We are pilgrims and strangers in this earth. 
We are in the world but not of it, and Jesus, by the 



THE SPIRIT OF RE VELA TION. Ill 

Holy Ghost, proposes to so lift us up that in spite of all 
earth's storms and trials we can walk about it and float 
above it, and be divinely and sublimely indifferent to a 
great many things that other people are worrying and 
fretting their souls about; divinely and sublimely indif- 
ferent to a great many things that hitherto annoyed and 
bothered and perplexed ; and let people be people and 
let things be things and let men be men, but we go 
walking on with Jesus; not lugging the burdens we 
once bore, not carrying the sorrows we once carried, but 
with Jesus ; while we are in the world, calmly and 
serenely walking above it. 

Now, we are a part of the things that lie wrapped up 
in these words. Oh, how we need the Holy Ghost ! In 
the closing prayer I propose that we gather up around 
this altar, everybod}^ and look for that Eternal Spring. 
Remember, friends, that the same Holy Ghost that 
hovered over the Virgin Mary hovers over you; the 
same Holy Ghost that was in Christ when the blood 
dropped out of His wounds ; the same Holy Ghost is 
here to apply that blood, the Spirit of wisdom and 
revelation. 



CHAPTER IX. 

ISRAEL; OR, POWER WITH GOD. 

"And Jacob said, O God of my father Abraham, and God of my 
father Isaac, the Lord which saidst unto me, Return unto thy coun- 
try, and to thy kindred, and I will deal well with thee: 

" I am not worthy of the least of all the mercies, and of all the 
truth, which thou hast showed unto thy servant; for with my 
staff I passed over this Jordan; and now I am become two bands. 

" Deliver me, I pray thee, from the hand of my brother, from 
the hand of Esau: for I fear him, lest he will come and smite 
me, and the mother with the children. 

"And thou saidst, I will surely do thee good, and make thy 
seed as the sand of the sea, which cannot be numbered for 
multitude. 

"And he lodged there that same night; and took of that which 
came to his hand a present for Esau his brother; 

"Two hundred she goats, and twenty he goats, two hundred 
ewes, and twenty rams, 

" Thirty milch camels with their colts, forty kine, and ten bulls, 
twenty she asses, and ten foals. 

"And he delivered them into the hand of his servants, every 
drove by themselves; and said unto his servants, Pass over before 
me, and put a space betwixt drove and drove. 

"And he commanded the foremost, saying, When Esau my 
brother meeteth thee, and asketh thee, saying, Whose art thou? 
and whither goest thou? and whose are these before thee? 

"Then thou shalt say, They be thy servant Jacob's; it is a 
present sent unto my lord Esau: and, behold, also he is behind us. 

"And so commanded he the second, and the third, and all that 
followed the droves, saying, On this manner shall ye speak unto 
Esau, when ye find him. 

112 



ISRAEL; OR, POWER WITH GOD. H3 

"And say ye moreover, Behold, thy servant Jacob is behind us. 
For he said, I will appease him with the present that goeth before 
me, and afterward I will see his face ; perad venture he will accept 
of me. 

" So went the present over before him: and himself lodged that 
night in the company. 

"And he rose up that night, and took his two wives, and his two 
womenservants, and his eleven sons, and passed over the ford 
J abb ok. 

"And he took them, and sent them over the brook, and sent 
over that he had. 

"And Jacob was left alone; and there wrestled a man with him 
until the breaking of the day. 

"And when he saw that he prevailed not against him, he touched 
the hollow of his thigh; and the hollow of Jacob's thigh was out 
of joint, as he wrestled with him. 

"And he said, Let me go, for the day breaketh. And he said, I 
will not let thee go, except thou bless me. 

"And he said unto him, What is thy name? And he said, Jacob. 

"And he said, Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but 
Israel: for as a prince hast thou power with God and with men, 
and hast prevailed. 

"And Jacob asked him, and said, Tell me, I pray thee, thy name. 
And he said, Wherefore is it that thou dost ask after my name? 
And he blessed him there. 

"And Jacob called the name of the place Peniel: for I have seen 
God face to face, and my life is preserved." — Gen". 32: 9-30. 

"And he put the handmaids and their children foremost, and 
Leah and her children after, and Kachel and Joseph hindermost. 

"And he passed over before them, and bowed himself to the 
ground seven times, until he came near to his brother. 

"And Esau ran to meet him, and embraced him, and fell on his 
neck, and kissed him : and they wept. 

"And he lifted up his eyes, and saw the women and the chil- 
dren; and said, Who are those with thee? And he said, The chil- 
dren which God hath graciously given thy servant. 

" Then the handmaidens came near, they and their children, and 
they bowed themselves. 

"And Leah also with her children came near, and bowed them- 
selves : and after came Joseph near and Rachel, and they bowed 
themselves. 



114 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

"And he said, What meanest thou by all this drove which I met? 
And he said, These are to find grace in the. sight of my lord. 

"And Esau said, I have enough, my brother; keep that thou 
hast unto thyself. 

"And Jacob said, Nay, I pray thee, if now I have found grace 
in thy sight, then receive my present at my hand : for therefore I 
have seen thy face, as though I had seen the face of God, and thou 
wast pleased with me. 

"Take, I pray thee, my blessing that is brought to thee; be- 
cause God hath dealt graciously with me, and because I have 
enough. And he urged him, and he took it." — Gen. 33: 2-11. 

"And God said unto Jacob, Arise, go up to Bethel, and dwell 
there: and make there an altar unto God, that appeared unto thee 
when thou fleddest from the face of Esau thy brother. 

"Then Jacob said unto his household, and to all that were with 
him, Put away the strange gods that are among you, and be clean, 
and change your garments : 

"And let us arise, and go up to Bethel; and I will make there 
an altar unto God, who answered me in the day of my distress, 
and was with me in the way which I went. 

"And they gave unto Jacob all the strange gods which were in 
their hand, and all their earrings which were in their ears; and 
Jacob hid them under the oak which was by Shechem. 

"And they journeyed: and the terror of God was upon the cities 
that were round about them, and they did not pursue after the 
sons of Jacob." — Gen. 35: 1-5. 



THE pivot of these various passages, the center, 
is contained in Gen. 32 : 28-30. "And he said, 
Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel : 
for as a prince hast thou power with God and with 
men, and hast prevailed. And Jacob asked him, and 
said, Tell me, I pray thee, thy name. And he said, 
Wherefore is it that thou dost ask after my name? 
And he blessed him there. And Jacob called the name 



ISRAEL; OR, POWER WITH GOD. 115 

of the place Peniel : for I have seen God face to face, 
and my life is preserved." 

We have heard a great deal about Jacob and Israel, 
and the experiences of the patriarch Jacob. We will 
have to omit a great deal to-day. I simply ask your 
attention to the lesson drawn from Israel, the lesson 
drawn from Jacob after his Peniel experience. 

I do not suppose I need take time to prove to you 
that Jacob was a real child of God twenty years before 
he obtained this blessing at Peniel. Anyone who will 
read the .account of the vision and the ladder and the 
Bethel experience of Jacob twenty years previous, and 
will take the trouble to pencil off various items in that 
account that go to demonstrate that he was God's child 
at that time, will find not less than twelve or fourteen 
specific statements, any one of which is sufficient to 
prove that Jacob was a child of God ; and of course 
when the twelve or fourteen are coupled together it 
makes an overwhelming statement. God was with him 
all these years. A great many persons criticise Jacob's 
career. He has been abused a great deal. A great 
many small sized men abuse great sized .prophets. It 
takes a small man to abuse a big man, all the time. 
You always find the small dog barking at the big one ; 
the big one goes along and doesn't pay any attention to 
it. That is so all through life. And so you will hear 
Job and Jacob and Peter and a great many Bible char- 



116 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

acters criticised. Small sized people, small sized preach- 
ers, who never had one tithe of the piety of these men, 
or their heroism or courage or faith, will analyze and 
caricature and hold them up to ridicule. 

Now I undertake to say that Jacob was as good a man 
before he got the Peniel experience as the great mass of 
Christian ministers and church members in all ages. I 
say the great mass : the average minister and the aver- 
age Christian of any age, in the Church. 

It was before he got the second blessing that he 
promised to give God the tenth of all his income. It 
didn't take sanctification to make him give the tenth 
A great many persons now that profess sanctification 
do not give a tenth to God. They haven't got religion 
after they are sanctified, not as much as Jacob had 
before he was sanctified. He gave the tenth of all 
he had before he got the second blessing, and God was 
so pleased with that thing that He incorporated it into 
the Jewish law for all ages for the Jewish Church. 
Now that shows how much religion he had, that he 
made a law that pleased God so well that God Himself 
adopted that law and put it into the Jewish economy. 

That is only one among the many evidences. It is 
true he did love money and he had a grasping disposi- 
tion, and had he lived in New York would have been 
equal to Jay Gould, doubtless, in wealth, for he had a 
natural genius for making money. 



ISRAEL; OR, POWER WITH GOD. 117 

But now we come to the Peniel experience. We find 
here in this lesson that we have read his entire conse- 
cration ; we find his sanctification and the baptism of 
power and what that baptism did for him. First, his 
entire consecration. 

He sent out messengers, and they came back and 
said, " Esau is coming with a great company of men 
[evidently soldiers] and he is coming to attack you." 
That led Jacob into an earnest, agonized prayer, which 
I read in the first verses, " O God, deliver me from my 
brother Esau ! " And then it occurred to him to make a 
present to his brother. So he parceled out a bountiful 
donation. The proverb says, "A gift appeaseth wrath," 
and so Jacob was acting upon the proverb. He sent 
this gift to appease his brother. Then after he sent the 
gift he arranged his household. He put the lesser ani- 
mals first and the more valuable animals next and the 
servants next, and then Leah and her children next, 
and then Rachel and Joseph last. 

How that illustrates the steps by which we give our 
all to God ! What a lifelike picture it presents of our 
own selves, when we draw nigh to God in hours of 
great distress, in times of spiritual crises, when God is 
about to lead us to our Peniel, to our Pentecost ! God 
always gets people in a fix so as to bring on a crisis. 
He has a way of crowding everybody into a corner. 
God has a way of sending some trial, some calamity, 



118 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

some sorrow, some besetment, some thorn in the flesh, 
some besetting sin, something or other — God has a 
way of arranging things so as to get us down to a Jab- 
bok brook, so as to get us down to this matter of a 
hand to hand conflict with Himself. And when God 
arranges these matters and draws us into a crisis like 
this, we begin to make an entire consecration, and we 
begin just like Jacob. We give the lesser things. The 
goats go first; they are the cheapest. Then the sheep; 
they are the next cheapest. And then the- cattle and 
then the camels and then the servants; and so, item 
by item, item by item, we surrender and yield all over 
into the hand of God ; and every time the great knife of 
consecration cuts off something it cuts closer and closer 
to our hearts, nearer and nearer the spot where we live, 
till by and by it touches our Rachel and Joseph. 

And after he had given all, then he was left alone. 
And there wrestled a man with him all night long. Do 
you know that after you have given to God everything 
you have in the universe you are only half consecrated ? 
It is only half done. When all the cattle and all the 
sheep and all the oxen and the camels and servants and 
the wife and the children, — when all was given there 
remained the perpendicular pronoun, Jacob. He was 
there ; he was left alone. 

Now, the most difficult, the prof oundest, the deepest, 
the more radical consecration comes afterward. The 



ISRAEL; OR, POWER WITH GOD. 119 

deepest consecration, the real consecration, is a giving 
up of ourselves. It is an inner work. It is a consecra- 
tion you cannot put on paper. We sometimes read the 
account of eminent men — very good and very proper, 
perhaps — who write out their consecrations. You 
have read the biographies of certain prominent schol- 
arly men, holy men, like Jonathan Edwards and many 
others, who wrote out a consecration of what they 
would give to God, — their time, their powers ; and many 
go on and mention item by item, item by item ; and a 
good many people have followed their example. But I 
want to say that the deepest consecration, the highest 
of all, the last consecration, cannot be put in words. 
It cannot be itemized. The intellect is too gross to ap- 
prehend all the details that make up the inner self. 
A man cannot analyze his own self. No man can ap- 
prehend his own self. There are yearnings and long- 
ings and feelings and aspirations and hungerings, there 
are doubts and fears, there is an inner consciousness, 
there is an inner life, there is an inner personality, that 
you cannot put on paper and you cannot itemize it, 
and that goes to make up self. 

Now, when this consecration of self is made it is a 
hand to hand work with God ; and so you will find that 
this Angel was no less a person than Jesus Christ. 
There wrestled a man with him ; and then it says, " The 
Angel of the Lord "; and before the lesson is finished it 
turns out to be the Elohim, the great God. 



120 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

When we begin some great spiritual conflict we 
think the same thing. We think that we are tugging 
away with a man. But by and by it turns out that the 
man is more than a man, He is an Angel; and before 
we get through we find out we are dealing hand to 
hand with God. 

To illustrate. A Methodist preacher said to me 
once, " I can give all to God but my appointments ; I 
can trust God, but I cannot trust the bishop and the 
presiding elders." " Now," I said, " that is a delusion of 
the carnal mind. You think } r ou are dealing with the 
bishops and presiding elders ; you think your trouble lies 
with some man, some preacher or some ecclesiastical 
officer. But when you get down to bed rock in your 
soul you will find out that you have nothing to do with 
second causes. You will find out, when you get closer 
and deeper into this great secret, it is not the bishop 
and not the presiding elder; it is the great God that 
you are fighting against." 

Jacob thought it was a mere man, and the Methodist 
minister thought it was a mere bishop or presiding 
elder He was deceived. We sometimes think it is 
our poverty, trouble, besetment or constitution, and we 
sometimes think it is a mere man, a mere temporary 
matter ; it is the weather, the east wind. But when we 
get down to bed rock we find we are not wrestling with 
the east wind nor our circumstances nor with man nor 



ISRAEL; OR, POWER WITH GOD. 121 

with society nor with second causes ; we find our souls 
are in a hand to hand conflict with the great God who 
lies behind all men and behind all second causes. Con- 
secration will bring us to a point where we are brought 
face to face with God ; and I tell you when a man is 
absolutely given up to God he has no second causes to 
him any more. He deals first-hand with headquarters. 

Now, that is just the way Jacob found it, and that is 
the way you and I find it. We sometimes hear it said 
that Jacob wrestled with the Angel. But the Bible 
doesn't say so. The Bible says that this Angel wrestled 
with Jacob. It was God that did the wrestling. It 
was God taking hold on Jacob more than it was Jacob 
taking hold on God. Jacob was asking for deliverance 
and God was answering his prayer by breaking his 
bones. 

We begin to pray for wonderful blessings, for won- 
derful enlargement, for wonderful victory. God begins 
to answer our prayer by shaving us down and by mini- 
fying us and reducing us. God answers prayer at the 
other end of the line. We pray for power, and instead 
of feeling that we are like Goliath, the more we pray 
the weaker we get. We pray for wisdom, and we want 
wonderful wisdom now, wisdom enough to run a whole 
General Conference ; and God answers the prayer by 
making us feel we are the biggest fools in the universe, 
We begin praying for riches, spiritual wealth ; and God 



122 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

begins by referring us to our spiritual poverty. What 
poor prayers and what j^oor services ! and what miser- 
able poor things we are ! And while we seek for power 
we get weak ; while we seek for wisdom we get foolish ; 
and while we seek for riches we get poor. That is just 
the way Jacob was led ; he was stripped of all things. 

Now, my friends, God wrestles with us in this way. 
What for ? In order that He may bring us to the point 
where He can conquer us. What did Jacob pray for ? 
" O Lord, deliver me from my brother ; I want power 
over my brother ; I want victory over my brother." In 
order that he may be victorious over his brother God 
must be victorious over him. God must conquer us be- 
fore we can conquer anybody else. No man can be 
emperor in a true sense unless he knows how to be an 
obedient subject. No man is fit to rule unless he 
knows how to be governed. And no man can be a 
prince of the kingdom of God until he first knows what 
absolute subjection is : and the man that God conquers 
can conquer all other men. That is philosophy. The 
man that God conquers can conquer earth and hell ; 
but the man that God does not conquer, an old cigar 
will conquer him. Anybody and anything can conquer 
a man that God cannot conquer. But when God con- 
quers you then you can conquer the devil and all men. 

And so God begins to answer this prayer ; but He be- 
gins away back yonder, far beyond the understanding 



ISRAEL; OR, POWER WITH GOD. 123 

of Jacob. He is now wrestling with him, subduing 
liim, breaking down all the inner fiber and fabric of his 
soul, grinding him into spiritual powder, in order that 
He may make him into dynamite. And so consecra- 
tion involves this complete yielding of our whole selves 
to God. We begin on the outskirts, with goats and 
sheep ; away off there, at our finger tips, our toe nails, 
buttons and hats and clothes. But it gets closer and 
closer, until the very inner being has been brought and 
laid in absolute subjection to the will of God. 

Now, when this consecration is made, then there 
comes the enduement of power, or there comes what 
prepares us for the enduement, and that is the change of 
nature. Just about the time He got him conquered, He 
said, "What is your name?" "My name is Jacob"; 
my name is, A Supplanter. That is the way he talked. 
The word Jacob is a Hebrew word, and the English word 
is, Supplanter. My name is, A Supplanter. "Well, 
how long have you been a supplanter? Well, I had it 
when I was born ; I inherited it, I suppose ; I always 
had a big bias, bent, make-up, that way ; somehow the 
thing was always in me by nature, and I guess in all 
these years I have somewhat fostered and somewhat cul- 
tivated it : but by nature I am a supplanter, and 
although I may have restraining grace, yet every 
chance I get I am liable to break out on that line, I 
am liable to break through the fence on that point ; and 



124 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

if I get a chance to take advantage of somebody in 
business, I am liable to do it, because that is my make- 
up, and it is in me by day and night ; and that is my 
name, and so I just confess my name. 

Now that confessing of his name was tantamount to 
turning his heart inside out and showing God all the 
colors of his soul ; and so a complete confession is in- 
volved in this thing. Now the very moment that Jacob 
made this absolute, unconditional and unlimited confes- 
sion, instantly the Lord cleansed him and changed his 
nature and name. Do you know that the only condi- 
tion of salvation in the Bible is confession? People 
sometimes think that is a very easy way of being saved. 
It seems so, I know ; but it is the hardest thing in the 
world to do. If we confess our sins, (it doesn't say a 
word about praying; it doesn't say a word about how 
long you wait), if we confess our sins, instantly He 
will forgive us and cleanse us. Isaiah did not ask for 
a clean heart. He did not pray very much. He simply 
turned his soul inside out, and said, " O Lord, I am a 
man of unclean lips," — although he was the best man 
then living on the earth, — and instantly God cleansed 
him. And you will find all through the Word of God 
that in order to seek pardon or cleansing, either one, all 
God wants is confession. 

What is confession ? Turning the heart inside out, 
like Jacob. My name is Jacob ; and when he simply 



ISRAEL j OR, POWER WITH GOD. 125 

said that, that was the nut that contained the whole ker- 
nel ; it involved the open confession. When a person 
simply opens the whole heart to God, without any 
apology, without any whitewashing; when you turn 
your whole soul out to God, instantly the blood will 
cleanse you; prayer or no prayer, — it is the climax of 
prayer, — cry or no cry, "He that confesseth and for- 
saketh shall find mercy." And so you find here the 
Holy Ghost has so put these things that the very 
moment he said, "My name is Supplanter, that is my 
make-up.; although I am God's child I have got this be- 
setment in me," right away God said, " Thy name shall 
no more be Supplanter, but thy name will be Prince of 
God." 

And so there God cleansed him from that phase of 
depravity, God cleansed him from the principle of being 
a supplanter, God cleansed him from all the radical in- 
being of sin, and filled him with the image and likeness 
of God and gave him the Pentecostal enduement, the 
baptismal power, that made him a prince with God. 

Now, He says, "As a prince thou hast prevailed and 
hast power with God and with men." 

Notice, now, the baptism of power. A great many 
are seeking power but are not willing to pass through 
the experience which is preparatory or conditional for 
power. There is no such thing as having the endue- 
ment of power over a carnal mind. There is. not a 



126 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

single passage in the entire Bible that teaches that any- 
body may ask or expect to receive the enduement of 
power, strictly so called, while they still remain un- 
cleansed from the carnal mind. I know there are many 
eminent men, I know there are many eminent evangel- 
ists, who go around and get great crowds of people 
seeking the baptism of power ; and there is nothing 
more sickening to the spiritual sense than to see a great 
crowd of people seeking power, power, power, power, 
power, when not one in twenty are willing to be cruci- 
fied with Christ or willing to be washed from the carnal 
mind; and you may pray a whole millennium, but the 
Almighty will not change His Word to please anybody. 
God will not baptize any man on this earth with the 
Holy Ghost unless He can first cleanse him. And Jacob 
never got the enduement of power until the principle of 
being a supplanter was eliminated from his heart ; and 
after cleansing then came the enduement. My dear 
friends, young workers, evangelists and missionary 
workers, you need never expect in your own experience 
or in your work to have any success teaching the endue- 
ment of power unless it comes as a consequence upon a 
clean heart. 

He had power, first, with God. He had power with 
God because he saw God's face. He says, "I have 
seen God face to face, and my life is preserved." Now, 
that is what I understand by power with God. A 



ISRAEL; OR, POWER WITH GOD. 127 

great many people have fictitious views as to what 
spiritual power is. They see men go out in the world 
and perform great works for God, and they talk about 
eminent workers as if there was a magic or a mesmer- 
ism or a necromancy about them. They talk about 
George Muller, about Bishop Taylor, and about 
Thomas Harrison, and about Dr. Cullis and about 
people who have become conspicuous in the world. 
There are lots of them ; I wish there were more ; 
people who are conspicuous as being men that God 
has honored in His work. And people think there is 
a kind of mesmerism or necromancy or something about 
these people. When they come to talk with them they 
find they are simple, plain, unsophisticated men, and 
they wonder how it is. This person has power with 
God, and people have all sorts of fictitious views as 
to what power with God is. 

Now, what is power with God? It is answered in 
this lesson. When you are so thoroughly subdued to 
the Lord, when God has so completely conquered you 
and cleansed you, and brought you into such relations 
with Himself that He can uncover His glorious face 
and shine into your heart and reveal His Son within 
your soul, and give such a personal manifestation of 
the Lord Jesus Christ in your own heart as will com- 
pletely fill and satisfy the needs of your soul, you have 
power with God. It is not power to make God work 



128 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

only by miracles ; it is not power to make God blot 
the stars out , it is not power to- make storms rise, to 
work Chinese fireworks; it is not such power as the 
men of the world are hunting for.. It is that inner, 
deep, settled, spiritual power, that brings God down 
from His throne and brings Him into your cabin and 
into your chamber and into your heart, and reveals 
Himself to your soul as the One altogether lovely and 
the satisfying portion of your nature. 

Power to prevail with God is power to bring man- 
ifestation of God into yourself. Peniel, the face of 
God. At Bethel he entered the house of God. At 
Peniel he saw the face of God. Conversion always 
brings us into God's house. That does not mean a 
visible dwelling, for Jacob was out-doors when he was 
at Bethel. There was no tent nor canvas nor log cabin 
around him ; the heavens were his canopy. But the 
house of God is the family of Gocl. The house of 
David means the family of David. And so conversion 
brings us into the house of God and the gate of heaven ; 
the entrance, the beginning, of heaven. When your 
sins are pardoned, when your soul has been regener- 
ated, you are then in the door of the great kingdom of 
God. Conversion is a Bethel to every soul. It is the 
house of God because then you are in the family and 
the home circle of God. 

But when you get to Peniel, where the film is re- 



ISRAEL; OR, POWER WITH GOD. 129 

moved off the eye and the depravity is cleansed from 
the heart and the Holy Ghost fills you with deity, then 
j^ou get a revelation of Jesus to your soul. There God 
becomes closer. You get something more now than the 
family of God, something more than the home circle 
relationship, something more than being in the doorway 
of heaven. You get into the presence of the great 
King and you get a revelation of Him to your own 
heart. Conversion brings us into the kingdom of 
heaven, and sanctification brings the kingdom of 
heaven into us. And more than that. It brings not 
only the kingdom of heaven but the King of heaven, 
both the kingdom and the King, in our souls, and we 
see the face of God. 

I am not" talking mystically, I am not talking fool- 
ishly, I am not talking at random. But did you ever 
see the face of God? Did ever you have a manifesta- 
tion to your heart by the Holy Ghost ? Did you ever 
get such a view of Christ ? You say, " Where is the 
face of God ? " I answer, " In the face of Jesus 
Christ." " For God who commanded the light to shine 
out of darkness hath shined in our hearts, to give the 
light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face 
of Jesus Christ." Did ever you get a view of Jesus, 
in some hour of prayer, in some secret place, under 
some mighty baptism, in some lonely hour, in some 
great meeting, at some camp meeting or convention, 



130 LOVE ABOUNDING, 

either in the crowd or by yourself ? Did you ever get 
such a view of Jesus that you forgot where you were 
and forgot all the surroundings and forgot what time of 
day it was and forgot all about the duties of life, and 
your soul just feasted and feasted, and you either wept 
or laughed and rejoiced, and you saw there something in 
Jesus ? It was not a vision but more than a vision ; it 
was not a mere myth, it was a reality ; it was not a 
mere passing whim ; it was not a day dream ; it was not 
a nervous ephemeral sensation across the retina of the 
eye. That deep manifestation was a view of the Lord. 
You did not see Him with your physical eye, but it 
seemed as though you did. You did not see Him with 
the imagination, but it seemed as though you did. It 
was deeper than eyes, it was deeper than imagination. 
It was what Paul talked about when he said, " It 
pleased God, who separated me from my mother's 
womb, and called me by his grace, to reveal his Son in 
me." 

It is all Bible ; and there is no nonsense, and there 
is no fanaticism and there it no heresy in it. It is 
a solid fact. Oh, the unfolding of Jesus ! A manifesta- 
tion to your heart of the Lord Jesus, in such a way 
that if you had met Him on the street you would have 
known Him, in such a way that if you would meet 
Him among ten thousand people and He was dressed in 
rags you would pick Him out and know Him. Glory 



ISRAEL; OR, POWER WITH GOD. 131 

be to His precious name! I have known Him! I 
never will get over to all eternity the manifestation 
God gave me once of Jesus. It follows me and hovers 
around me and stays with me. 

A few weeks after that manifestation, I remember, I 
was walking one day, in a snowstorm, along a street in 
Indianapolis, Incl., in a cold blizzard, the wind blow- 
ing, and freezing hard and snowing ; and I was hurrying 
along through the sleet and cold on some message ; and 
suddenly the Holy Spirit brought to my mind just 
simply these words : "Learn of me ; for I am meek and 
lowly in heart." And as I was passing by the Congre- 
gational Church on that street, I got such a view of the 
meekness and the humility of Jesus in those words that 
were just opened up into my soul, that the great tears 
ran down my face and my whole being was melted, and 
I just wept and wept and wept as I marched through 
the snowstorm ; and it seemed to me in my soul there 
was as beautiful a spring morning as ever I saw on this 
planet. 

Jesus ! I tell you, friends, the world is starving for 
the want of Jesus. A great many people are holding 
on to a cold, historical Christ, to a mere name ; and 
they have got a historical church, a historical piety, and 
a historical creed and a historical faith and a historical 
religion. But this living Jesus, with a pulse always 
tropical, with a love always sunshiny, can come and re- 



132 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

veal Himself to men and women, can come and uncover 
the nature of the mind, and can reveal the disposition 
of the heart to His children, in such a way that they 
will be almost overwhelmed with the glory of their 
Redeemer. 

That is what Jacob got. The face of God ! Oh, the 
face of God ! That face from which, when it is revealed 
in wrath, the heavens and the earth will fly awa}^. 
That face revealed to His little ones, those who are 
broken and those who are subdued and conquered, and 
those who go limping under God's conquering hand ! 

Well, then, he not only had power with God, but he 
had power with man, with his brother. The very next 
day he met Esau, and under this mighty baptism of 
power there went out through all the air a strange, 
divine influence ; and though Esau left his home with 
four hundred men, doubtless with the purpose of taking 
vengeance on Jacob, as soon as he got within range of 
that marvelous influence he began to feel the touch of 
a mighty hand, and he began to mellow down and 
soften down. Like two great worlds in that, when they 
are far apart, the attraction is somewhat delicate and 
slender ; but as the two vast orbs get closer and closer, 
the attraction, the gravity, increases, gets stronger and 
stronger, until by and by the two vast worlds rush to- 
gether. So these two men at first, perhaps, were afraid 
of each other, one man trembling and the other man 



ISRAEL; OR, POWER WITH GOD. 133 

full of vengeance. But as they got closer and closer, 
under this mighty baptism of power their hearts melted 
and dissolved, and by and by they went fast, and then 
faster, and then they ran and embraced and kissed each 
other, and the hardships and the angry words of twenty 
years were dissolved in a sea of love. 

Power with his brother ! Power to overcome the 
very man he was afraid of ! Power to subdue the very 
man of all men he dreaded most ! 

I knew a poor girl once, who had to go out and do 
domestic work, who got the blessing of sanctification 
under my ministry in Newport, Ky. She had a sister 
who was married and lived in Cincinnati, and about the 
only place the poor child had to go to visit was there ; 
and she said, " About every time I go there my brother- 
in-law blasphemes so it is perfect torture to go"; and she 
said, " If I get this blessing, how can I ever stand the 
abuse and cursings of my brother-in-law?" But finally 
she said, "Lord, I will take it; for Jesus' sake I will 
bear it " ; and she paid the price and got the anointing. 
She said that the next Sunday after she went to sfce 
her sister, and her brother-in-law was as gentle as a 
lamb. God had put His clutch on the poor fellow. 
That may not always be the case, but if God does not 
answer your prayer in that particular way He will in 
some way. There will be some enemy, there will be 
some devil, there will be some Esau, there will be some- 



134 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

body or some cross or some trial ; the very thing you 
most dreaded, the very thing you were most afraid of, 
God will have it dissolved in the alchemy of His own 
grace. 

The preacher who is afraid to preach sanctification, 
who is afraid to run his colors to the masthead for 
fear he will not get a call, for fear he will not get a 
salary, for fear he will starve, can never amount to 
much; whereas the preacher who says, "Amen, Lord, 
I will do it ; I will take the poorest church in the con- 
ference; I will do it," is the man that gets more 
calls than he can fill, and has a world-wide field open 
to him. Your enemy, your foe, some cross, some bur- 
den, some lion that lies in the way, God will give you 
power over. 

Then he got power over himself. His great beset- 
ment had been to supplant men, to take advantage of 
men; he always got the big end of a bargain. That 
was his besetment. And now look at him. He pours 
out a vast donation with the liberality of a prince, 
prince as he is. And Esau says, " I am rich ; I have got 
plenty ; I do not want your cattle nor your wonderful 
gifts." Jacob says, " I beg you to accept them, for God 
hath blessed me and I have all things." The English 
version here says, " I have enough " ; but the Hebrew 
says, "I have all things." Doesn't that sound like 
Paul ! "All things are yours ; whether Paul, or Apol- 



ISRAEL; OR, POWER WITH GOD. 135 

los, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things 
present, or things to come ; all are yours ; and ye are 
Christ's ; and Christ is God's." 

How the baptism of the Holy Ghost puts a sense of 
wealth into a poor heart ! " Take the present, for I have 
all things." There you see the complete victory of that 
man over his own self. 

And then the last phase of victory was victory over 
his enemy, over the ungodly and unregenerate world. 
The Lord God said, " Go up to Bethel "; and he had 
been camping around there for a long while, and the 
women had used their household gods. Now you may 
think it strange that Jacob's family had household gods. 
It does not mean that they worshiped any false gods, but 
the true God. But they had little cherubim and sera- 
phim ; the Hebrews always had, from the days of 
Adam ; they had a picture of the cherubim. When 
God put Adam and Eve out of the Garden of Eden, He 
put cherubim at the gate, and they made a picture of 
them ; and wherever they wandered they had a picture 
of those cherubim. The same cherubim were after- 
wards put in the ark of the covenant. When they 
prayed they would pray in the presence of those tera- 
phim. Rachel had one she took away from home, and 
her father tried to make her give it back, you recollect. 
These little things were looked upon as very innocent 
among the people of those times. But under the light 



136 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

of the Holy Ghost people will see fine points •, and 
under the light of the Holy Ghost Jacob saw that 
although the great mass of good people, the goody, 
goodish folks, had these little teraphim and cherubim, 
that was the entering wedge of idolatry. So he said, 
" Give up your earrings and give up these teraphim." 
The earrings then worn were very extravagant. They 
had rings on the toes and hands and nose and ears, and 
he saw that these people in his own family were like 
the heathen, and he said, " Lay aside all this nonsense." 
" Why," they said, " there is no harm in these "; like 
folks now tell about dime novels and tell about theaters 
and tell about dancing and tell about cards. Those 
people are so blind they cannot see it. That is why. 
They are color-blind, like some engineers. There is 
a red light yonder. The engineer swears the color is 
blue, and goes on at the rate of fifty miles an hour and 
wrecks his train. The great mass of church members 
are color-blind ; and when God Almighty hangs a red 
light out they say it is blue, and go dashing on. 

When you get the baptism of the Holy Ghost, I tell 
you, it takes the color-blindness out of your eyes. He 
saw that these petty gods and all these nonsensical 
things were a drag on their piety and a damage to their 
faith. He took the whole bundle and hid it in an old 
charter oak somewhere around there, and they are there 
yet, I guess, if some American traveler has not gone 
to work and hunted them out. 



ISRAEL; OR, POWER WITH GOD. 137 

Now note. After he had said, " Put away these gods 
and put away this jewelry and put on clean garments," 
and when he got all the family dressed up in clean 
robes, " Now," he said, " we will go to Bethel." And as 
he marched along here were the vicious heathen. They 
were so vile it would not be appropriate to describe 
them. They were in the habit of just pouncing down 
on anybody, and cutting and slashing and taking any- 
thing they found. And yet here he was, with his little 
family, marching right through a gang of robbers, right 
through, the fiercest people on this earth; and as he 
went God put His hand on this heathen people, and it 
says that they did not touch Jacob nor his family. 

Why ? Because he had sanctified the whole family, 
and they were clean, and God was their guardian. I 
tell you that is power. Men may swear at you, they 
may hate you; but the very moment they find you 
stand true to God they back down. The very fellow 
that blasphemes and is talking obscene talk, the very 
moment he sees that you are a Jesus man, and have got 
Jesus in your heart, he will slink away like a whipped 
dog. God puts a hook in the jaw of the ungodly, and 
there is a terror that will come on the world when the 
Church stands in her pristine purity and power. 

May the Lord God reveal to us all what this wonder- 
ful secret is, this enduement of power ; " for as a prince 
hast thou power with God and with men, and hast pre- 
vailed." 



CHAPTER X. 

SAVING MAN FROM HIS PURPOSE. 

"For God speaketh once, yea twice, yet man perceiveth it not. 

"In a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falleth 
upon men, in slumberings upon the bed ; 

" Then he openeth the ears of men, and sealeth their instruc- 
tion, 

" That he may withdraw man from his purpose, and hide pride 
from man. 

"He keepeth back his soul from the pit, and his life from per- 
ishing by the sword." — Job 33: 14-18. 

GOD speaks once, yea twice, but man perceives it 
not, and then He speaks by another process : in 
visions, in night dreams, when deep sleep falleth upon 
man, He sealeth up instruction. He does this in order 
that He may withdraw man from his purpose, and save 
his soul from going down into the pit. I ask y$ur 
attention to a running exegesis of these words. 

Notice, first, the different kinds of calls that God 
gives to men. He speaks three times. He speaks 
once, yea twice ; man perceives it not. Then He 
speaks by revelation. He speaks first by creation, 
and then He speaks by conscience, and then He speaks 
by revelation. Now, God's voice in nature and God's 

138 



SAVING MAN FROM HIS PURPOSE, 139 

voice in conscience are unheard, and men do not per- 
ceive it. He says here, " God speaketh once, yea twice, 
yet man perceiveth it not." Why ? Why, because he 
is so fallen, so depraved, so blind, that he is not on a 
plane high enough to detect the voice of God in nature 
and in conscience. 

A great many people in Boston are talking about 
natural religion, and about God in nature ; but they 
never saw God in nature, and they never heard God in 
nature. They heard the echo of their own fancies. 
No man can see God in nature until he gets on a plane 
where God is. If a watchmaker should fling a watch 
into a cage of monkeys, no monkey would be able to 
understand anything about that watch, because he has 
got to get as much brains and as much intelligence and 
as much mechanism, and he has got to understand as 
much, as the watchmaker does, before he can under- 
stand who made the watch. And neither man nor 
demon, in his depravity, will ever see God in nature 
until he gets on a level with God ; and all this talk 
about seeing God in nature is nonsense. The heathen 
never saw God in nature. I mean to say they never 
saw God in such a way as to come to God and get saved 
and get pardoned. And nobod} r else ever did. 

Now, God talks first in nature, but men do not per- 
ceive it. Then God talks by the conscience. He 
speaks in the conscience, but the conscience is so dull, 



140 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

so dead, and so dwarfed, that men do not perceive God 
speaking in their consciences. A very few have, 
faintly and dimly, and yet the great mass of men 
do not recognize God's voice in the conscience. 

And so God had to resort to a third method of saving 
men. This was by direct revelation. People are not 
saved by God in nature, nor by God in conscience, nor 
by natural religion. And so God speaks to men by a 
direct, spiritual revelation ; a revelation that lies outside 
of man, and superior to and above man, and that comes 
down upon him. 

Now, this revelation began away back before the 
Bible was made. Direct revelations have been made 
before the Bible was written, in visions, in dreams, in 
sleep at night; so that inspired men had visions of God 
and dreams from God, and they were taught things of 
God before the Bible was penned. Job had no Bible, 
but he had his direct and infallible revelation from 
God. God does not come to us now in individual 
visions and dreams, that is, in a sense to reveal the 
plan of salvation. It is true that often yet God does 
reserve to Himself the right to visit anybody with a 
dream or a vision. God has not sold out the right to 
work miracles. God has not leased the power that He 
possesses to reveal Himself to human beings. And even 
now among the Indians, — among people who cannot 
read nor write, — before the war among the colored 



SAVING MAN FROM HIS PURPOSE. 141 

people of the South, and out in Africa and among the 
Red Men, and among various people who have not access 
to the written page, and who cannot read the Bible, God 
has oftentimes sent them dreams and visions by which 
they are taught and instructed and revealed things con- 
cerning salvation. 

But God has given to us His written Word, so that 
this written Word covers all the territory that is here 
mentioned by speaking in visions and dreams in deep 
sleep ; so that all spiritual light must come to us by 
revelation. God must reveal Himself, His true nature 
and true character, in some way above nature and 
above the mere conscience ; and all you know of God 
really, as to His character and as to His method of 
salvation, you have got from revelation. 

You hear the Unitarian talk about the All-Father, 
about God being a Father. There is not a Unitarian 
on this earth that absolutely knows one single thing of 
God the Father, except he learned it and saw it of 
Jesus Christ, or in Jesus Christ ; and if Jesus Christ is 
not God, then God the Father is unknown. There is 
no God the Father in the universe, except it be God 
the Father that was shown out in the Lord Jesus. And 
the man who bows down to God out of Christ bows 
down to an idol of his own fancy and of his own im- 
agination. And there is not a Unitarian on God's 
earth that ever prays to the God of the Bible; and 



142 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

every prayer he offers is a blasphemy to an unknown, 
imaginary ghost. There is no God the Father except 
the Father which has been revealed in Jesus Christ, 
and to ignore that Father is to ignore the only Father 
and the only God. Yet men are going around worship- 
ing God, building churches to God, having colleges 
to God, having seminaries to God, and ignoring Jesus 
Christ and Him crucified ; and in the day of judgment 
God Almighty will condemn the whole of them from 
end to end, as having worshiped a false god. 

There is no true God but the God that was revealed 
through and in Jesus Christ. There is no true prayer 
in this world that is not offered in and through Jesus 
Christ, and all other prayer is a humbug. I have no 
more respect for prayers that are offered outside of 
Christ than I have for the blasphemies of anybody — 
not a bit. You may think I am very narrow gauged, 
but I will tell you that God is deaf as a stone to every 
thief that tries to climb into His bosom outside of 
Jesus ; and any man that tries to get to heaven out- 
side of Christ is a thief, and every man that ignores the 
blood of Jesus, every man who ignores the Son of God, 
is a thief, — is trying to steal a ride to heaven on some 
other train than God's train. And God does not 
recognize any worshiper on earth as a true worshiper 
except he worships Him in God's revealed way, 
through His Son. 



SA VING MAN FROM HIS PURPOSE. 143 

Right away there is a smart fellow back there says, 
" Hold on, Brother Watson ; how about the poor heathen, 
that have no Bible? Don't they pray to God?" — 
" Yes." — "And aren't their prayers heard ? " — = " Yes." 
"And aren't their prayers answered ? " — " Yes." — 
"What about their knowledge of Christ ? " I answer, 
that every prayer they offer, they offer to Jesus Christ. 
There is not a heathen on this earth that ever prays to 
any God but Jesus Christ. How do I know that ? I 
will tell you. Bishop Taylor and all the African ex- 
plorers -will tell you that when the heathen men of 
Africa pray, they call on the God that made the 
heavens and the earth : " O God, who made these stars, 
who made these heavens, who made this earth, have 
mercy on me." And they pray to the God that made 
the heavens and the earth. And who is that God? 
Jesus Christ. "All things were made by him ; and 
without him was not anything made that was made." 
Jesus Christ made every blazing star and every planet 
and every atom of matter. And the heathen are an 
infinite distance beyond the Unitarians of Boston. 
They pray to Jesus Christ. 

And so it is all revelation. I know nothing of 
heaven except what Christ has revealed. I know noth- 
ing of hell except what Christ has revealed. We know 
nothing of sin except what Christ has revealed. We 
know nothing of salvation but what Christ has revealed. 



144 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

Man does not know his own heart ; he does not know 
his own depravity ; he does not know the viciousness 
and the depth and the magnitude of his own fall; 
neither does he understand the depth and the extent of 
salvation, except as it is revealed in Jesus Christ. And 
I insist absolutely on a revealed religion all the way 
through. I would as lief trust to the fetich of a 
heathen that bows down to an old stick, as trust to the 
fetiches of modern science and philosophy ; and if I 
have got to have a little bit of a god, I would as soon 
have a little dirt god made by a black man in Africa as 
have a little, transcendental, ethical, theological, mytho- 
logical god, manufactured in Cambridge. If I am 
going to be a heathen let me be one out and out. 

No, my friends, nobody can be saved except they are 
saved through the revelation that comes from God in 
Jesus Christ. Now, why does God reveal Himself? 
Why does He speak through nature and then through 
the conscience, and we do not perceive, and then He 
comes closer and reveals Himself in this wonderful 
spiritual vision, in this wonderful daylight manifesta- 
tion? Why does God reveal to us His own heart? 
Why does God reveal hell to us ? If the revelation of 
hell is not true the revelation of heaven is not true. 
The people who do not believe in hell do not believe 
in heaven, and if there be no hell there is no heaven. 
If God will tell me a lie about hell He will tell me a 



SA VING MAN FROM HIS PURPOSE. 145 

lie about heaven ; and if I cannot trust what God says 
about damnation, neither can I trust what He says 
about salvation. 

And yet the scholars and the higher critics are trying 
to eliminate hell fire from the Word of God, without 
•knowing that they are simply eliminating salvation. 
Every time they eliminate hell they eliminate heaven, 
for they go together in the revelation. I say Jesus has. 
revealed to me a hell, and He has shown me people in 
hell suffering. He has revealed to me heaven, and 
people there happy and triumphant. And He has 
revealed a way of escape from hell, and a way to get 
to heaven ; and anybody is a fool that will try to get 
ahead of God, and try to invent or patent a hell or 
heaven of his own. I am going to take what God says 
about the one and the other. 

And He shows me my sin. I had not known the 
feelings of my heart except Jesus Christ had told me 
what lay in man's heart. And I had not known what 
a clean, pure heart was, except Jesus had described 
it and lived it, and given me a dictionary to define 
it, and then a photograph to look at. None of you 
know anything of the depravity in your inner soul 
except what you have learned out of the Bible. And 
all you and I know about ourselves and about the 
future world has been revealed to us ; and this revela- 
tion comes to us, — what for ? In order to draw man 



146 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

from his purpose, and save him from going down into 
the pit. 

Now, let us consider, in the next place, what man's 
purpose is. God reveals Himself in order to draw man 
away from his purpose. The margin says, to draw man 
from his work, from his own work, from his own pur- 
pose. God, in order to save men, must draw men from 
themselves. He must draw us from our own center 
of gravity ; He must draw us from our own inclinations 
and predilections and preconceived ideas and our own 
depravity. And so God reveals Himself. He comes 
close to us, and opens up a wonderful panorama. He 
opens up to us three worlds, — the world within, the 
world above, and the world below. He unfolds to us 
this vast panorama ; and He does all this in order that 
He may draw man from his own purpose, entice and 
draw and win man from himself, in order that he may 
not go down into the pit. 

I remark that by nature nobody is conscious of what 
their own purposes are. We have purposes and drifts 
and tendencies and biases and bents in our nature that 
we are utterly unaware of. There are tendencies in 
boys and girls that they are never aware of until they 
get to be along in years. There are subtle biases, 
there are motives in the human heart, that people are 
not aware of. People are selfish and mean and greedy 
and stingy and underhanded when they are not aware 



SA VI NG MAN FROM HIS PURPOSE. 147 

of it. People are cruel and harsh and unkind and 
brutal when they are not aware of it. People in their 
homes are unkind, harsh, and cruel, and biting, and 
sarcastic and cutting in their words, when they are not 
aware of it. 

There is a depravity in the human heart that the 
human heart is not aware of. There is an over-reaching 
and under-reaching and selfishness towering up in the 
human soul, and a self-will, that, like the subtle light- 
ning, pervades every cloud; and yet people are not 
aware of it. And human beings would be frightened 
to death if God was to show them absolutely all the 
little details and driftings of their nature that they are 
unconscious of. If God should come right squarely to 
us and begin to tell us all about these things we would 
not believe Him. We would say, "Lord, you don't 
know who you are talking to ; I am one of the first 
families, and I don't have all those things in me." And 
God knows it is no use ; but He can see away down 
what the drift and what the bias of our natures are, 
and He came by this revelation of hell to awaken us, 
and of heaven to entice us, to salvation. There is a la- 
tent despot in every human soul. There is a latent Nero 
in every human heart. There is a latent worm that never 
dies. There are latent principles in us that God sees 
will in a few years work out our absolute destruction. 
And God's plan is to draw us from our purposes in 



148 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

order to save us. He need not tell us our purposes, for 
we would not acknowledge them; we are not aware of 
them at all. 

Then, again, man is not aware of the result of his 
purposes. The men who run off to Canada with a 
handful of money never designed in their lives to do 
that thing when they commenced. Never ! The men 
who go to the penitentiary never designed going there. 
The man who dies a drunkard never designed going to 
a drunkard's grave. Men are doing things to-day, 
sinners are doing things to-day, church members are 
doing things to-day, they never dreamed they would 
do in years gone by. But gradually, notch by notch, 
gradually they have gone on ; but they are not aware 
of what is going to come to pass in their own hearts 
and lives. God can foresee just exactly how things will 
turn out, and He knows if He cannot arrest and save 
man from sin, and the results of his sins, what the end 
will be. You recollect that when the old prophet saw 
the king he began to weep. He said, " What are 3^011 
weeping at ? " " Oh ! " he said, " I am weeping to think 
of the awful, horrible, unmentionable crimes that j^ou 
are going to commit " ; and he went on to rehearse 
before the young and gay fellow the awful crimes, too 
horrible to mention, that he would commit. The king 
said, "Am I a dog ? Do you think I am a dog to do 
those things?" But in the lapse of a very few years 



SA VING MAN FROM HIS PURPOSE. 149 

that young man committed those very crimes. Why? 
God put glasses on the old prophet's eyes, and enabled 
the old prophet to see what the result would be if he 
followed the bent of his inner heart. 

So to-day we are not aware of the results of the 
depravity that lies in our own selves. Men who get 
converted, doubtless, and join the church, intending to 
press on their way and be good, active Christians, 
gradually allow depravity in some form or other to be 
entertained in their hearts, and to live in their hearts ; 
and the depravity grows upon them as the years go by, 
and the outcome of that life is miserable indeed, and 
nobody but God can foresee what the end will be. So 
His great revelation is to draw man from his purpose, 
from the bent and bias of his own nature, in order to 
save him from going down into the pit. 

There are many men to-night who once sat under 
lamplight as soft as this is, in churches as pleasant as 
this is, and heard the gospel preached, either in its more 
negative or positive forms, as the case may be, who were 
utterly unaware that they had within themselves the 
very things that would result in their damnation. You 
and I carry within ourselves those very things that, if 
allowed to remain in our hearts, to work out their 
natural and legitimate results, will land us in hell fire. 
And only God can foresee what the outcome of these 
hearts will be, and God reveals Himself to draw us 
from our purpose. 



150 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

There is nothing in this universe so ruinous to a man 
as himself. The devil is not half as bad as we are our- 
selves, so far as our own damnation is concerned, and to 
leave a man to himself is the worst calamity in the 
universe. Nothing can be more awful in the universe 
than for God to walk off and leave a man all by 
himself. 

Now, salvation consists in drawing a man from him- 
self. That is the point. That is salvation. Salvation 
consists, not in a man catching himself up, not in 
reforming, not in eliminating, not in revamping, not in 
repainting. Salvation is just exactly the opposite of 
what the great mass suppose it to be. It is directly the 
opposite of all man-made dreams about salvation. 
Salvation is divine, supernatural, and revealed to men 
in order to draw men from themselves ; and our salva- 
tion consists simply in drawing us from our own selves. 
That is salvation. Instead of trying to reform yourself 
and patch up yourself, it is just exactly the opposite. 
It is to get you to move out and leave yourself behind 
yourself and go off with God. That is salvation. 

Now this word "purpose" in the margin is "work." 
It does not matter. Man's "purpose" or man's 
" work," it is all the same. And this can be applied to 
salvation. Salvation consists in saving a man from his 
own work, his own wisdom, his own power, his own 
greatness, his own glory, his own. self-esteem, his own 



SA VING MAN FROM HIS PURPOSE. 151 

righteousness, his own piety, his own church, his own 
god. Every man has a god, every man has a little 
church of his own manufacturing; every man has a 
little creed, god, church, idol, a little righteousness, a 
little wisdom. Salvation consists in drawing man from 
his own god to a true God, from his own dreams and 
ideas and purposes and righteousness to Jesus Christ. 

There is an instinct in the human soul by which 
people try to work themselves into salvation. It is 
instinctive. People try to work themselves into par- 
don ; and it is the most difficult thing to get people to 
understand that salvation is divine, supernatural, a free 
gift. It is all right. There must be a human side to 
it. There must be a human work. But it is so diffi- 
cult to get the sinner to see that salvation is divine, it 
is a gift, it is to be received by simple faith. 

It is the most difficult thing in this world to get a 
penitent to let go of his own works and take Jesus 
and His salvation. People will join the church, and be 
baptized either by immersion or sprinkling, or both. 
They will take the Lord's Supper, read prayer books, 
put on gowns, swing censers, bow their heads, be con- 
firmed, go to the Holy Land, confess to a priest, dip in 
holy water, count their beads, go through snowstorms 
and all kinds of bad weather ; they will do anything on 
God's earth but surrender to Jesus Christ and trust His 
blood. 



152 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

I tell you, talk about popery — popery is nothing in 
this world but just what is everywhere in the world, 
salvation by works. You will find people who are run- 
ning hither and thither, going to hear this man preach 
and that man preach. " What do you think of Dr. So- 
and-so ? " And they will run to hear a Methodist, and 
then a Unitarian, a Baptist, and then a Swedenborgian, 
to Spiritualist meetings — trot here and there, and do 
anything on this earth except just turn their hearts 
inside out and say, " O God, I am a miserable sinner ; 
save me for Jesus Christ's sake," and trust His blood 
and get salvation by simple faith. 

I have traveled up and down this continent, and 
gone into a great many of the churches, and I tell you 
I find that salvation by works is an instinct to the 
depraved human soul, and that the Church is largely 
preaching salvation by works. It is, " Go and join our 
church," and do this and do that. Here we find people 
leaving one church and going to another, because they 
say this church don't allow them to do what they want 
to. One girl in Indiana left her church because the 
pastor had religion and didn't allow dancing, and went 
to a church where the pastor had no religion, and 
where they allowed dancing and advocated it ; and she 
thought she would get to heaven all straight. The 
minister who tells souls that they can go to heaven by 
doing so and so, is just as guilty before God as any 



SAVING MAN FROM HIS PURPOSE. 153 

pope that sells indulgences ; and hell is just as close to 
a backsliding Methodist preacher who will do that as it 
is to the pope or anybody else. 

My soul gets sick within me, and my eyes fill with 
weeping, when I see people deluded in this idea that 
religion consists in a thousand and one things, whereas 
it consists in coming to Him. Jesus did not say, Go 
join the church ; nor, Go be baptized ; nor, Go be con- 
firmed ; nor, Go commit the shorter catechism ; but, 
" Come unto me." You can do anything out of hell 
but go to Jesus Christ. You can commit all the books 
in the world, but you won't " come to me, that ye might 
have life." 

The same thing is true about Christian people seek- 
ing sanctification. They will do anything in this world 
but just fall right flat down at Jesus' feet and say, 
"Jesus, I am your child, but my heart is depraved. 
Please wash out my depravity and save me, for I cannot 
do it. If you do not save me, I never can be any 
better than I am. Cleanse me." 

People go to camp meetings ; they join the choir and 
sing ; men will get up and preach sermons ; they will 
do anything but trust the cleansing blood. They will 
putter round and make believe they are working hard 
for God, as if they could buy God off with a little bit 
of work. A great many people will do things to avoid 
the issue. They will say they are working for God. 



154 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

They will take a basket, or two baskets, and go round 
and hunt for the poor, and they will say, " Now I am 
working for God," and they will think God ought to 
sanctify them. They will go and beg subscriptions, 
and work, and do anything but trust the cleansing 
blood. Preachers will preach themselves hoarse, and 
they will think the Lord ought to sanctify them be- 
cause they have been preaching so well. God won't 
sanctify you if you preach yourself to death. You 
cannot hire your God to sanctify your soul by doing 
anything. You have got to trust the cleansing blood, 
or you will never get a clean heart. You may weep 
and pray, and go around and make believe you are 
doing a lot of work, but let me say, you have got to 
come right down where you can say, Lord, — 

In my hand no price I bring; 
Simply to Thy cross I cling. 
Jesus, Thy blood, Thy blood alone, 
Has power sufficient to atone. 

And I will tell you why. There are some things 
you cannot buy; there are some things you cannot hire. 
You can hire an Irish girl or a German girl or an 
American girl to cook your breakfast for you ; but you 
cannot hire any servant girl to love your children for 
you. When it comes to loving your wife or loving 
your husband or child, that is a job you cannot let out. 
You can hire things done on the plane of hiring, but 



SA VING MAN FROM HIS PURPOSE. 155 

there are some things that are infinitely beyond hiring. 
And the blood of Jesus cannot be hired and cannot be 
bought. A bride can give herself to her husband, but 
she cannot be bought ; there are not riches enough in 
the universe of God to buy her, but she can give her- 
self away. 

Jesus Christ cannot be bought, but He will give 
Himself to you. He is above being bought. Jesus 
says, "I give you my blood and I will give you my 
cleansing ; I will give you my salvation and I will give 
you myself ; but you cannot buy me. I am not in the 
market to be sold, but I will give myself." And yet 
the world is so gross and so heathenish and so vile, it 
does not understand that about God. It thinks God 
will traffic with His precious blood, like a man will his 
old clothes. People do not know who God is. When 
you know the Lord you will find out that God cannot 
be bought, but He can be induced to give Himself to 
you. So the precious blood is a gift, but it never 
can be purchased. You cannot purchase it by saying 
prayers nor counting beads nor preaching sermons, any 
more than you can purchase it by brass cents ; not a 
bit. 

Now, my friends, preachers and people, if you want 
a clean heart you have just simply got to lay aside all 
your own merit and all your own righteousness, all 
your own wisdom, all your own good works, all your 



156 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

own glory, and come to God, naked, emptj^-handed, and 
take it as a free gift. Do it to-night, right here. 

So salvation is to save man from his own works. 
Then again, this applies to business. God reveals Him- 
self to us in order to draw man not only from his own 
works in saving him, but to draw man from his own 
works, his own business. People are devoted to busi- 
ness, Christian people. They are so devoted to their 
business that it becomes an idol, and the Lord reveals 
Himself to draw us from being devoted to our own 
affairs, our own business. How many men there are 
making a god of their business ! They cannot go to 
the holiness convention, they cannot go to prayer meet- 
ing; they have no time to get a higher, deeper life. 
They have no time to be converted, in the first place. 
Men say, " I am a business man " ; and somehow people 
think they can talk about being a business man, and 
that is a license for them to absent themselves from 
secret prayer and family prayer, and the real duties 
belonging to the inner and spiritual life. Such men do 
not know that they are blaspheming God and putting 
up another god in the place of Jesus ; but they are 
really saying, " My business is my god, and I must wor- 
ship down at my shop, my store, and my office, and I 
must leave Jesus with the women and children. I must 
go off and attend to business. I am a business man." 
Everybody who talks in that way proclaims his idolatry 



SA VI NG MAN FROM HIS PURPOSE. 157 

— that he is worshiping a god that is not the Lord 
God. No time to get sick, they say, and death comes 
and robs them, and then the devils laugh. 

Oh, how devoted people are ! Sometimes people are 
devoted to a little patchwork, to a little visiting, to any 
little work. They have got some little job on hand, 
and they say, " I would like to, but I really have no 
time for secret prayer, no time to look after my soul's 
welfare, because here is this little piece of business, and 
I must attend to it." And they are so devoted; and 
somehow the devil comes in and throws a sort of gild- 
ing over the work, and makes them believe it is half- 
way pious for them to neglect their soul's salvation and 
to attend to business. What do they need? They 
need a red-hot revelation from God to draw them from 
their work — in the language of the text, to save them 
from going down into the pit. People are going down 
to the pit all around, because they are so devoted to 
what they call their business,.their domestic affairs, and 
their science and their philosophy and their work. 
Now just think of those people dying. Just think of 
the awful lonesomeness of going into eternity and never 
having anything to do but to wail and gnash their 
teeth, and cry, " Fool, fool ! " Here is a man who can- 
not read the Bible, he is so busy with the newspaper. 
Here is a man who cannot say his prayers in secret, 
for he must rush down and unlock the office. No 



158 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

time to wait on Jesus, no time to have a little talk 
with Jesus, no time to get a peep into eternity, no 
time to consider the soul's welfare ; and when they 
die, they go out disembodied ghosts, to wander 
through eternity, where there are no more works, no 
newspapers, no banks, no railroads. I wonder what 
poor sinners will do ! 

Where are the men who tramped these streets thirty 
years ago? The graveyards are full of people whose 
feet once moved along these streets, so busy, busy, 
busy, busy. Their bodies are now decaying in the dust; 
their souls are in some lonesome vestibule of perdition, 
and they have nothing to do. No railroads, steamboats, 
shops, nor stores. What on earth do these people do 
through the lonesome ages of eternity ? That is where 
we are going to unless we are prepared for heaven. 
Every unsaved person, as sure as you live, you are sim- 
ply preparing yourself to sit in some lonely chamber of 
eternity, and wail and wail. You say you are busy 
now. Well, the day will come when death will relieve 
you of all your business, and you will have nothing to 
do through all eternity but to sink into the pit. 

Well, it has a still closer application. God wants to 
save man from his own church work. A great deal of 
so-called church work nowadays is a substitution for 
the Holy Ghost. People are busy working for the 
church; they are so busy. They say, "Really I am 



SA VING MAN FROM HIS PURPOSE. 159 

busy working for the church," and they have what is 
so-called church work. 

There is a vast amount of ecclesiastical work in 
these times that does not have anything more to do 
with salvation than a fire company has. There is a 
vast amount of puttering and busying around, and run- 
ning hither and thither, doing jobs that look to be 
ecclesiastical, that seem to have a churchly aspect to 
them ; but they have no relation to spiritual life or sal- 
vation, or the Holy Ghost. How easy it is to take up 
something or other in the shape of church work and 
make that a substitute for the baptism of the Holy 
Ghost ! We are so busy with our church work we have 
no time to seek power. Now God wants to draw man 
from his own work, from his own ecclesiastical work, if 
need be, in order that He may save him from going into 
the pit. 

Now, what is this pit ? That is the last point. It is 
a bottomless pit. A great many persons laugh at a 
bottomless pit. They say, " How can there be a pit 
that has no bottom to it?" The Bible does talk about 
it, and I presume God knows what He is talking about. 
God does talk about a bottomless pit. The Bible 
says that this bottomless pit is in the outer darkness. 
Well, now, I can simply give you an illustration of a 
bottomless pit ; whether it be the real pit or not, it is 
one like it. Suppose this world were hollow, as scion- 



160 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

tists think it is, largely, and full of fire — and they think 
it is full of fire, burning sulphur. Now suppose you 
could bore a hole in the earth, and drop something 
right down in the middle of this world, and there was 
a great cavity inside. Will } t ou tell me where 
the bottom of that place would be? The exact center 
of that hollow space would be the center of the world. 
But if you go up on this side of the world, that is on 
the top ; if you go down there, that is on the top ; and 
where is the bottom of a concave surface, like the 
hollow earth? The bottom is the center. Now, then, 
that is absolutely and really a bottomless pit ; and there 
may be a world away off some where that God has made 
hollow, where the sun never shines and there is no 
light, and in an enormous cavity God may pun- 
ish the lost forever. That is the external meaning, the 
physical meaning. 

But do }^ou know there is another meaning to the 
words " bottomless pit," that comes closer home, and that 
is your own selves ? Man is a sphere, man is a little 
world by himself ; and when man falls from God and 
cuts loose from God, and gets away beyond the touch 
of the Holy Ghost and beyond the touch of the cleans- 
ing blood, man naturally and everlastingly gravitates 
into his own self, and falls, falls, falls, world without 
end, all through eternity ; keeps falling into his own 
self. Man is forever gravitating to the center of his 



SA VING MAN FROM HIS PURPOSE. 161 

own being, and never finding it; and there is in man's 
soul, just as in a hollow globe, a bottomless pit. Sui- 
cides find it, misanthropes and melancholists ; people 
who despair find it ; people who brood over themselves. 
Oh ! to think of the awful horror of just simply devour- 
ing yourself all through eternity; falling into self, 
cursing yourself, finding fault with yourself, calling 
yourself fool, tearing your hair, saying, " What a fool 
I was, what a fool I was, what a fool I was ! God, why 
didn't you kill me ? What a fool I was ! " forever and 
forever. 

. Man can never find repose in himself. You can 
never find a place of rest in your own soul. Your own 
soul has no more place for a rest than a hollow world 
has ; and if you were tumbled into a hollow world, where 
could you find a place to put your foot on ? The only 
way a human being can rest, or an angel can rest, is to 
get out of one's self, and lean down on God and repose 
in God. Jesus' bosom is the only pillow where im- 
mortal souls can rest ; on Jesus' heart, the center of the 
universe, where all things can repose. And if you cut 
loose from Jesus and His salvation, and try to find rest 
in yourself, you are forever and forever sinking down 
in your own self, in your own thoughts, and passing 
the long centuries like a piece of iron in a hollow world. 
You can never find rest. 

And so, friends, the worst hell is the pit that man 



162 LOVE ABOUNDING, 

carries in his own soul, — to be forever tumbling and 
falling into your own self, without ever finding any 
rest, any peace, any comfort, any satisfaction ; forever 
gravitating from God, and going down, down, down, 
without ever finding a place of repose. That is the pit 
that God wants to save us from, and He knows that we 
have a tendency that way. And God calls by nature 
and calls by the conscience, and we still go on -, and 
then He comes closer, by visions and dreams, and rev- 
elation and Bible, and the bleeding Lamb and a cross ; 
and He makes all His revelation in order to call us from 
our own selves, our own works, our own purposes ; to 
save us to His own self, that we may not go down into 
the pit. 

Oh, I beg of you, bid good-bye to your own selves 
to-night ! Bid good-bye to your depravity, your doubts 
and fears, and just put your eye on Jesus, and go 
straight to Jesus and say, " Jesus, I will take you, and 
I will take the Father in you, and I will take the Holy 
Ghost in you ; I will put my arms by faith around 
Jesus crucified, and in Him I will receive the Father, 
and in Him I will receive the Holy Ghost. I take 
Jesus to wash my soul and cleanse my heart, and I will 
risk my eternity in His hands , and instead of gravi- 
tating into the pit of my own self, I will fall over in 
the bosom of my redeeming Lord." 



CHAPTER XL 

SUPERIOR ADVANTAGES OF THE INDWELLING 
COMFORTER. 

" Nevertheless I tell you the truth; it is expedient for you that 
I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto 
you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you." — John 16: 7. 

THIS promise refers to the incoming of the Holy 
Ghost as an abiding guest in the heart of a be- 
liever. It was given by Jesus to the disciples, and 
through them to all believers of all time. It does not 
refer to the preliminary work of the Spirit in conviction 
and conversion ; it refers to the permanency of the 
indwelling Spirit in the heart of the perfected believer. 
A great mistake is made in the matter of an advanced 
Christian experience, by confounding the witness of the 
Spirit in conversion with the baptism of the Holy 
Ghost. The witness of the Spirit had already occurred 
in the hearts of these disciples. Jesus was acting in 
the office of the Witnesser when He said to His disci- 
ples, " Your names are written in heaven " ; but this 
promise refers to what was to succeed the work of 
Christ. 

163 



164 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

We know that the Holy Ghost was in the world from 
the beginning. He moved upon the "face of the waters 
and adorned the heavens. The Holy Ghost was striv- 
ing with the hearts of the antediluvians ; the Holy 
Ghost changed the hearts and inspired the faith of 
saints in past generations ; yet all this was done before 
He made His personal advent in the world. Jesus was 
in the world before He made His advent. He talked 
with Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden ; appeared 
in the flesh to Abraham ; He walked with Ezekiel on 
the banks of the Chebar, and with the Hebrew children 
in the fiery furnace. All this personal manifestation 
was before His advent into the world. So that Jesus 
and the Holy Ghost were both of them working in all 
past generations ; and yet in the fullness of time Jesus 
made His personal advent, and after His glorification 
the Holy Ghost made His personal advent into the 
world. . . . The disciples had already been regener- 
ated. Jesus testified that their names were written in 
heaven; they had cast out devils. To-day there are 
thousands who have believed on Jesus and received the 
initial work of the Holy Ghost, who have been trans- 
lated from the kingdom of Satan to the kingdom of 
Christ, yet they are as ignorant of the gift of the Holy 
Ghost as the Ephesians when Paul first visited them. 
Jesus represents this incoming work of the Third Person 
of the Godhead as the crowning work of the kingdom 



THE INDWELLING COMFORTER. 165 

of God, and He teaches us that there are advantages 
that cannot be secured by the visible presence of Jesus 
Himself. 

I. In the first place, in securing a higher degree of 
spiritual understanding than could be by the bodily pres- 
ence of Christ. It is the office of the Spirit to take the 
words of Jesus and reveal them unto us. It is the 
office of Jesus to reveal the truth in word, but it is 
the work of the Spirit to reveal that truth in the heart. 
It is not the work of the Spirit to give us light in all 
the minor matters of life and nature. The headlight 
on a locomotive throws light on the track; some 
beams may spread out and light up the farms and for- 
ests, but that is incidental. The Spirit throws light 
only on the track to heaven. The aim is not to illu- 
minate nature, nor science. The Spirit may illuminate 
a man's mind so that he better understands science, 
but that is incidental. His especially ordained work is 
to throw light on the way to glory — on revealed Bible 
truth; not natural, providential, nor governmental 
truth. The Holy Ghost does not add anything either 
to the Bible or to the soul. He is not the creator of 
facts. All things in heaven or in earth were created 
by Jesus Christ. He is to take what has been made, 
and to reveal the one and to cleanse the other. When 
the film is drawn from the eye, the physician does not 
add a new function to the eye, but purifies it. When 



166 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

the telescope shows distinct worlds, it does not add new 
stars ; it draws back the veil, and shows what God has 
created. So the Holy Ghost does not create a new 
power in the soul, but removes the him; purges and 
glorifies what is already in the soul. Not a new verse 
does He add to the revealed will of God, but takes the 
Word of God already existing, gives a clearness and 
distinctness to what had been previously existing 
through the ages. We are not to look to the Holy 
Ghost to make a revelation not made through the Word. 
To suppose that the Holy Ghost will give us a new 
truth is to suppose that He will break the Word of 
God. God has said he that addeth to or taketh from 
His Word shall suffer for it; and the Holy Ghost will 
not take from nor add to. Those men on Pentecost 
had nothing added to or taken from ; but they had a 
better understanding of the Old Testament Scriptures 
than ever before, though they had been with incarnate 
deity. We see Peter teaching from the Old Testament 
as never before. 

There is in the human soul a native darkness that no 
amount of learning can dispel, though we walk with 
Solomon or talk with the bodily Savior. Conversion 
cannot fully remove it; conversation with the Lord 
Jesus for three years could not remove it. It is some- 
thing that nothing but the entire sanctification of our 
souls will ever remove. All things combined are in- 



THE INDWELLING COMFORTER. 167 

adequate to remove the native blindness of the soul 
without holiness. Hence we find the baptism of the 
Holy Ghost is the only safeguard against heresy. A 
man may be a heretic, though he be as wise as Solomon. 
We may talk as we will, there is a grain of heresy in 
every unsanctifled soul in the universe. The baptism 
of the Holy Ghost is the divine remedy to remove 
spiritual heresy. There are many ministers, though 
they are professedly orthodox, who themselves are 
heterodox. Some unconsciously lean towards Unita- 
rianism ; some towards Universalism ; some towards 
Spiritualism ; some towards soul-sleeping ; some towards 
the annihilation of the wicked : some have heres}^ 
one way, some another. These things are in their 
hearts in spite of their wills ; they are native there. 
Only by the baptism of the Holy Ghost are they re- 
moved. As the chaff is burned in the furnace of fire, 
so the baptism of the Holy Ghost is the only consumer 
of darkness and safeguard, according to Christ's own 
words. No minister of any age or any Church is 
entirely freed from it until entirely sanctified. So that 
a plain man entirely sanctified, without learning, and 
with the Bible in his hands, has an understanding of 
the divine promises, sees farther into the prophecies 
of God, gets a firmer grasp on God's Word, than all 
the doctors of divinity that are not sanctified. It is 
not the will of God that His saints are to walk in dark- 



168 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

ness or error to any degree spiritually, and He lias 
furnished a prevention to secure His people in all ages ; 
and if any one walks in error, it is because he is 
unsaved. 

II. The indwelling of the Spirit secures a higher 
degree of certainty than we could have with the visible 
Jesus without the Spirit. The Scriptures want us not 
only to understand, but to know. Understanding is 
through the mind, but knowledge is through the con- 
sciousness. It is not the intent of the Bible that we 
should rest on a " perhaps " or a "guess so." Take the 
concordance, and } r ou will be astonished to see how often 
the words " know " and " knowledge " are used in the 
Bible, and what we may know hy the Holy Ghost. 
" They shall know my name " ; " know my voice " ; "I 
will make you to know my way"; "We know we 
have passed from death unto life " ; "I know whom I 
have believed"; "We know all things work together 
for good"; "We know that if our earthly house of 
this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of 
God, an house not made with hands." There is a vast 
range of truth that is so adapted to your consciousness, 
that you may know it as certainly as an archangel. 
There are facts in relation to the divine government, 
etc., that you cannot know; but those facts that lie 
between you and God, — between you and heaven; all 
those that come between you and your God, — the 



THE INDWELLING COMFORTER. ' 169 

moral facts between you and your fellow-creatures, you 
can know with absolute certainty. When the Holy 
Ghost comes to abide in your heart, He takes His 
abode in your spiritual nature. We must remember 
there are three kinds of knowledge. We have a body 
of bones, muscles, nerves ; there is sensibility. We 
know all material facts through the sensibilities. Be- 
hind that we have a mind, which Paul calls the soul ; 
through that we have knowledge of time, cause and 
effect, recollection, imagination, and deduction; that is 
mental- knowledge, and is in many cases more certain 
than the other. You may be more certain that two and 
two are four, than of the temperature of your body. 
Higher than that is the spirit, called in the Old Testa- 
ment, heart, and in the New Testament, pneuma, spirit. 
In your spirit, in your heart, far beyond all physical 
knowledge, far beyond all mental knowledge, you 
know by spiritual intuition. You know you are one, 
and not two. In the heart you know without reason- 
ing and without sensation. You are conscious of spir- 
itual facts and states without education, whether you 
have done much thinking or not. The spirit gets its 
knowledge by intuition, not by the reasoning powers. 
You will find that the Bible explains this ; the Holy 
Spirit operates on that part of your nature. The wit- 
ness of the Spirit is not to your physical — it is not to 
your reasoning faculties. A religion that has to be 



170 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

reasoned out has not yet got into the central heart. In 
the old tabernacle there was the outside court for the 
sacrifices, hemmed in by a curtain, but was open to the 
sunshine and rain. That represents your physical na- 
ture, which is at the play of nature's forces. In 
beyond the first veil was the sanctuary, with the table 
of showbread and the golden candlesticks, where the 
lamps were kept burning night and day. That lamp 
represented the mind, the laws of human instruction, 
mental beliefs and reasoning. 

But beyond the second veil was the holy of holies. 
Nothing was allowed there, so far as light was con- 
cerned, but the blazing light of the Divine Shekinah. 
A thick curtain of badger skins kept out sunlight and 
lamplight ; and if God did not shine there, there was 
nothing but total darkness. Now, your spirit is reached 
by the Holy Spirit. The powers of the mind can never 
illuminate your heart ; unless God shines in your spirit, 
it remains in total darkness. So when the Holy Ghost 
makes His advent He penetrates through the body, 
through the mind, and enthrones Jesus in the heart, 
and there from your spirit He shines out through your 
mind and through your body. In course of time your 
very face will wear a heavenly smile ; but if your face 
wears a heavenly smile it is because of the blazing 
Shekinah in your spirit. The knowledge you have in 
your spirit far exceeds your knowledge of physical or 



THE INDWELLING COMFORTER. 171 

mental things. Men put physical knowledge as the 
most certain, mental knowledge less certain, and reli- 
gious knowledge least certain. The fact is, the physical 
is the least certain. Our eyes, our ears, our sense of 
touch all deceive us. Mental knowledge is a little more 
certain. A man knows that there are three angles in a 
triangle. Spiritual and religious knowledge is most 
certain of all. What we know in religion we know as 
truly as Gabriel. I say in the presence of that Bible 
that spiritual and religious knowledge is indubitable. 
When it comes, it comes instantaneously ; and you can- 
not imagine a doubt. The light of noon puts the 
thought of doubt to flight. The Holy Ghost will take 
those things in the Word of God (never outside) and 
put them into your consciousness, so that where you 
previously believed in your mind, now you know. So 
that if you have doubted the divinity of Christ, from 
that instant you are as conscious that He is divine as 
that you are not divine ; so that we can be just as con- 
scious that Jesus is infinite as that we are finite. The 
apostles believed on Christ, but they did not know that 
He was divine. Jesus said, "When the Holy Ghost 
comes you will not only believe, but you shall know 
that I am in my Father and my Father in me. You 
shall know by an infallible proof that I am as truly 
God as that my Father is God." It was shown to me 
by the Spirit. I am just as conscious that Jesus Christ 



172 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

is divine as if I had lived with Him a thousand years. 
Any one who has a doubt about the divinity of Jesus 
Christ should get sanctified, and he will know that He 
is divine if he does not see Him for a million years 
yet. The Holy Ghost takes the blood of Christ and 
applies it to the heart, for it is the baptism that sancti- 
fies ; at that instant that you are fully sanctified, the 
Holy Ghost enters ; but it may be some time before He 
reveals all the facts in the case. When He enters in 
He will take the virtue of Christ's blood and reveal it 
to your consciousness, so that you may be conscious 
of the blood. That may seem extravagant, but it is in 
the Word. Previousl}- you have believed in the blood, 
and accepted it as the meritorious ground of salvation, 
but in the indwelling of the Comforter He gives you 
the fulfillment of your faith with power. You may be- 
lieve in the blood without feeling it; but the Holy 
Ghost makes you conscious of it, so that you not only 
believe that the blood cleanses, but in the Spirit's in- 
dwelling He makes you to feel and know that it 
cleanses ; and a soul can feel that it is pure. 

Then take this idea of God's special providence. 
The indwelling Sanctifier converts the Bible truth of 
providence into an absolute certainty. A regenerated 
man may believe in special providences, but the Holy 
Ghost takes the facts of special providences and reduces 
them in His burning crucible into a glorious conscious- 



THE INDWELLING COMFORTER. 173 

ness. " We know that all things work together for 
good." We know that the hairs of our heads are all 
numbered. We know when wrapped around by cares, 
and our hearts are aching with sorrow, we know that 
He has a love for us that is specific — that is minute, 
that is abiding. And we live under these laws of the 
Holy Ghost, and under the conscious drapery of the 
fingers of God. No sanctified soul ever has any shak- 
ing on the subject of special providences. All these 
matters about which we had a little doubt, — that is all 
gone, and we are in the domain of certainties. A 
South Carolina minister, at a National Camp Meeting, 
when sanctified said, "The uncertainties of a lifetime 
are gone." What this world is dying for is ministers to 
preach what they absolutely know, congregations to 
sing and testify of what they know. All the men that 
walk this green earth are more or less in uncertainty 
until they are sanctified. All that are sanctified walk 
on rock, and know that it is rock. I do not mean that 
a converted man does not know that he is converted, 
but there are some things in religion he is uncertain 
about. God has provided that we should walk this 
earth with some degree of certainty. We walk amid 
quagmires and crooked paths, but the sanctified believer 
walks on marble. 

III. The indwelling Holy Grhost insures a higher de- 
gree of security than we could otherwise have, though 



174 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

walking with the visible Jesus. It is the will of God 
that we be not only certain, but secure in religious 
things. We are living in a state of probation. It does 
not end until we die or Christ calls us up. If we were 
free from danger, we would not be probationers. The 
idea of trial involves danger. The problem of salvation 
is to take us through this world of dangers and make 
us as secure as possible, — to take us through probation 
as secure as possible with the facts of probation. Take 
the Word of God, Christ, and the Holy Ghost, and you 
are furnished with provisions for the highest security 
that is compatible with probation. God knows there 
are liabilities and possibilities of falling, or it would be 
no probation ; but He wants to make this life as secure 
as possible. In the indwelling of the Holy Ghost the 
dangers of life are reduced to their minimum, and the 
securities of life are raised to their maximum. That is 
the mathematical problem God has solved, — so that we 
will be tried and tested for all eternity, and yet make 
us as secure as possible. That is God's insurance. 
Taking that view of it, where are the dangers that 
beset a believer ? Those that lie in the external world, 
those that appeal to the five senses, those that appeal to 
the mind, — they are one class ; another class lurks within, 
— an unsoundness at the center, an inward aptitude 
for unholy things. Those dangers that lie within a 
man are greater than those that lie without. A seed of 



THE INDWELLING COMFORTER. 175 

sin within the soul is like a beautiful palace with a keg 
of powder concealed within it, — it may be the house 
will never burn down, but it would be a great deal 
safer with the powder away. A seed of sin in the 
soul is like the keg of powder in the closet, and the 
devil shooting Greek fire all around you. It is the 
work of the Holy Ghost to destroy the love of sin, and 
thereby open a fountain within of things good and 
heavenly ; so that by purifying the fountain He makes 
the stream pure. When the Holy Ghost takes hold of 
the will -the rebellion is gone, and the will reposes on 
the bosom of God. If the Holy Ghost keeps the heart 
the dangers are all on the outside. In the law of 
gravitation there is a wonderful force, but it is so in- 
visible and intangible that it is beyond our grasp. 
What is it that moves the worlds as they run on their 
lightning-footed marches? God has put His hand at 
the center, and they go better by being moved at the 
center than if they ran in iron grooves. God proposes 
to hold you and me by sending the Holy Ghost, whom 
no man " hath seen or can see," and putting Him in our 
souls, in our desires, in our wills, to guide us in our 
marches, better than if we had guardian angels by our 
side or the visible Jesus. Men have been known to 
backslide within the finger touch of Jesus. You and I 
are less liable to fall, and are better off, than if we had 
the visible Christ without the Holy Ghost; we are 



176 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

better off than Adam in the garden of Eden. He was 
a holy man and fell into sin ; we were in sin and can 
fall upward into holiness. I had rather be a poor }^et 
saved crippled man, halting like Jacob, than to be 
Adam in Eden. Sanctified men can fall, but in an 
overwhelming number of cases they will not fall. 

Nothing but a lack of faith in these great truths robs 
us of our power. There are sanctified people who 
keep praying for power ; their very unbelief confesses 
they have lost the power. They may pray for twenty 
years, but they will never have it until they believe. 
People want a sort of phenomenal power. Our power 
lies in believing God ; there is your power. We lose 
power by telling ourselves we are not strong. In the 
name of God, tell the world you are strong ; tell the 
devil you are strong. Believe the promises without 
feeling ; if you fail and fall by believing, then }^ou can 
confess for power. 

I believe God has placed us under the most favorable 
circumstances. I would rather walk here with the 
Holy Ghost in my soul, than with Moses yonder with 
the pillar of fire over his head, or with uncovered feet 
at the burning bush. I would rather walk here with 
the Holy Ghost in my heart, than to tread with apostles 
the shores of Galilee. 

The Father in His dispensation gave us law. Jesus 
gave Himself, His virtue and sacrificec He sent the 



THE INDWELLING COMFORTER. 177 

Holy Ghost to sanctify believers. The Holy Ghost in 
His dispensation applies the law, appropriates the death 
of Jesus, and preserves us until His coming again. 
Then we shall have the capacity for the double revela- 
tion of Jesus within by the Spirit, and Jesus without 
by vision. Then on through the summer years of eter- 
nity, with the Holy Ghost within and the blazing body 
of Jesus without, we shall see Him as He is, and live 
with Him forever and ever. Glory to God ! Amen. 



CHAPTER XII. 

OFFERING UP ISAAC. 

"And it came to pass after these things, that God did tempt 
Abraham, and said unto him, Abraham: and he said, Behold, 
here I am. 

"And he said, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom 
thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him 
there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I 
will tell thee of. 

"And Abraham rose up early in the morning, and saddled his 
ass, and took two of his young men with him, and Isaac his son, 
and clave the wood for the burnt offering, and rose up, and went 
unto the place of which God had told him. 

" Then on the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes, and saw 
the place afar off. 

"And Abraham said unto his young men, Abide ye here with 
the ass; and land the lad will go yonder and worship, and come 
again to you. 

"And Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering, and laid it 
upon Isaac his son ; and he took the fire in his hand, and a knife ; 
and they went both of them together. 

"And Isaac spake unto Abraham his father, and said, My 
father: and he said, Here am I, my son. And he said, Behold 
the fire and the wood : but where is the lamb for a burnt offering? 

"And Abraham said, My son, God wiH provide himself a lamb 
for a burnt offering: so they went both of them together. 

"And they came to the place which God had told him of; and 
Abraham built an altar there, and laid the wood in order, and 
bovmd Isaac his son, and laid him on the altar upon the wood. 

"And Abraham stretched forth his hand, and took the knife to 
slay his son. 

178 



OFFERING UP ISAAC. 179 

"And the angel of the Lord called "unto him out of heaven, 
and said, Abraham, Abraham: and he said, Here am I. 

. "And he said, Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou 
any thing unto him: for now I know that thou fearest God, see- 
ing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son, from me. 

"And Abraham lifted up his eyes, and looked, and behold 
behind him a ram caught in a thicket by his horns : and Abraham 
went and took the ram, and offered him up for a burnt offering 
in the stead of his son. 

"And Abraham called the name of that place Jehovah-jireh: as 
it is said to this day, in the mount of the Lord it shall be seen. 

"And the angel of the Lord called unto Abraham out of heaven 
the second time, 

"And said, By myself have I sworn, saith the Lord, for because 
thou hast done this thing, and hast not withheld thy son, thine 
only son: 

"That in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will 
multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which 
is upon the sea shore ; and thy seed shall possess the gate of his 
enemies: 

"And in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; 
because thou hast obeyed my voice." — Gen. 22: 1-18. 



IN the earlier years of my ministry, I used to take a 
very short text and preach a very long sermon from 
it ; take a very short text as a kind of motto, and then 
work a week in laboring to manufacture a sermon. 
But since it pleased the Lord to take the film from my 
eyes by the baptism of the Holy Ghost, by the fulfill- 
ment of a certain -prophecy made in Isaiah that He 
would baptize us with the Holy Ghost and take the 
mist from our eyes, or the veil, I have quit making ser- 
mons and gone to preaching God's sermons already 
made. I find that God made more sermons and bet- 



180 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

ter sermons than all the preachers can make in all 
the ages. So I have dropped my old factory business, 
and often take for a text just simply one of God's 
sermons. And here is one reported in the twenty- 
second chapter of Genesis, on the offering up of Isaac. 
Now doubtless } T ou are familiar with this interesting 
narrative, which has thrilled so many millions and 
will thrill more when more thoroughly understood. 
This is one of God's sermons that He has been preach- 
ing to us. I simply call your attention to some of the 
points, which are in the nature of an exegesis. With- 
out losing any time, and touching upon only the salient 
points, I remark, in the first place, the distinction 
between being a servant of God and a son. When they 
were going toward the place Mount Moriah, where he 
was to offer up his only son, he came within sight of the 
mountain afar off. There are no forest trees in Pales- 
tine ; at all events, very few. It is like Mexico and 
Southern California. You can see a great way off. 
The atmosphere is clear and there is not much brush, 
not much timber. You can see a man riding on horse- 
back ten or fifteen miles away in Colorado, just as 
clearly as you can see a man a mile in this country. 
And so he came, and afar off he saw the mountain. 
When he discovered the locality he said to the servants, 
"Abide ye here with the ass ; and I and the lad will go 
3^onder and worship, and come again to you." 



OFFERING UP ISAAC. 181 

This incident, like all the incidents in the Bible, is a 
teaching incident. God has caused His word to be so 
recorded that all the minutiae and all the incidents that 
are put into His Book are in the nature of instruction. 
And so, always and forever, it turns out that there are 
those who follow God, who are with God's family, who 
worship with God's people, who are mingled with God's 
numbers, and yet they are in the nature of the office of 
servants, not sons. When God has special revela- 
tions, special manifestations, wonderful trials and won- 
derful . joys, transfigurations on the one hand and 
Gethsemane sorrows on the other, when God has a great 
crisis at hand, and some great event is to transpire, 
whether of great joy or great sorrow, the truth holds 
equally good, that the hirelings in the service of God 
must retire at a distance, and only those who are in 
true, intimate spiritual fellowship with God have access 
to these inner scenes in the life of Christ. 

And so these servants, these hired men, were the real 
worshipers of God, doubtless, in Abraham's family; 
for Abraham had a godly family, and doubtless had all 
the family collected at family prayers, and had all the 
servants. But they did not sustain the covenant rela- 
tion with God, that deep and intimate union that 
Abraham and his son did ; so when the time came to 
offer up Isaac, he and the lad went on up the mountain 
into their Gethsemane, and into what was to be their 
transfiguration from that time onward. 



182 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

It was thus in the life of Jesus. Sometimes in 
Christ's ministry, those who had no faith, those who 
served God from fear, those who hoped that they had a 
hope, — people who had that kind of religion, who are the 
hirelings in the kingdom of God, sometimes on the out- 
skirts of the Holy Ghost realm, — they were not allowed 
to go in and see Christ raise the dead and perform His 
wonderful work. But Peter, James, and John formed a 
sort of inner circle around Christ's life, and had access 
to the deeper things in His ministry. 

So it is to-day. It is so in Boston to-day. There are 
a great many who attend the Church of God, who doubt- 
less give of their means in the support of the ministry, 
in all missionary causes and enterprises of the Church, 
and people who believe in a religion of good works and 
good deeds, — Christians who fear God and, to a certain 
extent, work righteousness, — but have not yet received 
the witness of the Spirit, have not yet learned to love 
God, have not had the love of God shed abroad in their 
hearts by the Holy Ghost. They may be servants of 
God, and they may do many things which are religious 
and churchly and orderly and proper and commendable ; 
and yet they are not in such relation to Jesus, in such 
union with the Father, as that God can reveal things 
unto them as He can unto babes. They are the wise 
ones. They are the prudent ones. They are the 
thoughtful ones, — it may be, sometimes too thoughtful 



OFFERING UP ISAAC. 183 

for God ; sometimes too wise for God ; sometimes too 
prudent for the Holy Gliost. God loves these great 
ones, these wise ones. Many of the philosophers are 
God's hired men, and many a babe is taken into the 
inner chamber where God reveals deep things ; for He 
has hid these things from the wise and the prudent and 
the hired men, and revealed them unto babes, — unto 
those who have been crucified with Christ, and whose 
wisdom and self-learning and self-esteem and self-honor 
and their own pride of intellect have been utterly cru- 
cified, — and they go into the kingdom of God heart 
foremost, and find things that the others cannot find. 

Not because God is a respecter of persons, for God is 
not a respecter of persons. But God is a respecter of 
character. It does not depend on Peter or James or 
Mary or Matthew, or anybody else; God has no re- 
spect for a man's mere personality. But God will go a 
long ways to find a true character, like His own ; for 
God does respect character. 

Now that is the first lesson here. Are we so related 
to God ? Are we like Abraham and Isaac ? Can God talk 
to us? If God calls us to go to Gethsemane ; if God calls 
us to undergo some trial or some crucifixion or some 
abasement, or calls us to- a great joy, are we willing to 
go ? Sometimes God has as much difficulty to make 
people really happy as to make them really sad. There 
are a lot of people who are afraid God will make them 



184 LOVE ABOUNDING, 

happy. They are afraid to shout. They never said 
hallelujah in their lives, and they are afraid to say it. 
So God has as much difficulty to make us willing to be 
blessed as to make us willing to be afflicted. There are 
a great many persons who are willing to go moping and 
mourning and weeping all their days, but they are never 
willing to get really happy for God. Thus it does not 
matter whether it be some great crisis of sorrow or great 
crisis of joy, God will call us to some mountain top ; and 
the place or the mountain top where we suffer the 
most will turn out to be the mount of joy in the end. 
But if we are God's hired servants, if we are God's 
philosophers and on the outskirts of this great empire 
of salvation — why, we must stand out in the vestibule 
while God reveals Himself to His bosom friends within. 
Let us next look into the offering up of Isaac as a 
type, first of Jesus and then of ourselves. The offering 
up of Isaac is a type of the offering of Jesus Christ. 
This is so plain that it is recognized by all readers 
of God's Word. Jesus Himself uses this as an emblem; 
and we find that the analogy between the offering up of 
Isaac and of Christ is very close. He was his only son, 
his only true legal heir : Jesus Christ is the only begot- 
ten Son of God the Father. He was the son whom he 
loved: Jesus is emphatically the Son of the Father's 
love. He was offered up to die : and so God the 
Father gave His own Son to die, a ransom for us. The 



OFFERING UP ISAAC. 185 

very mountain upon which Isaac was offered, or near 
there, is the very spot where Christ was offered up ; or, 
at least, where He was betrayed, and where the transac- 
tion virtually took place. 

I need not discuss this very much, because we want 
to get the application. There is a fact which we find 
the farther we advance into God's Word and our experi- 
ences : that whatever truth can be affirmed of Jesus, 
apart from His vicarious sufferings, apart from His 
divinity, nearly all can be made in a limited sense about 
the followers of Christ. The believers in Jesus are so 
to be united in heart, mind, and spirit, that the same 
prophecies that were made concerning Christ are made 
concerning the members of His mystical body, and the 
same statements that are made about Jesus are made 
about His followers. Many of the prophecies where 
David was speaking of himself are like that which the 
Ethiopian asked Philip, " Did Isaiah speak of himself or 
some other man ? " There are a great many prophecies 
in which David spoke of himself and of Christ in a sort 
of double affirmative. Like a person standing between 
two mirrors, the same image will be reflected back and 
forth, down a long avenue or vista of reflected images. 
So the same truth about Jesus and the believer may be 
affirmed in hundreds of instances. " Out of Egypt have 
I called my son." That referred to the calling of the 
Jews out of Egypt, but preeminently to the calling of 



"186 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

Christ out of Egypt ; in a still deeper or truer sense, to 
the calling of God's believers and followers out of the 
bondage of Egypt. Jesus prayed that we might be one 
with each other and one with Him, as He was one with 
the Father. Now this offering up of Isaac is as applica- 
ble to us, really and spiritually, as it was to Jesus. Not 
in the same sense. He was offered up as a vicarious sac- 
rifice : we are offered up in order to obtain the merits of 
His offering. Jesus gave Himself, — He was given up 
to die vicariously, but we can never get the full benefit 
of His offering until we are offered up. It is by our 
being crucified that we get the benefits of His cruci- 
fixion, and He was crucified in order that we might be 
crucified. He declares, — for this purpose I offer my- 
self, or, I sanctify m} r self, that they may be thoroughly 
sanctified. And Jesus gave Himself an offering that 
we might offer up ourselves and get the benefit of His 
great sacrifice. 

Now, we must offer our Isaac, our darling, our idol, 
our heart. You may go to work and name a thousand 
and one things that constitute the Isaac of different 
persons ; and when you have boiled the foam all off, and 
boiled the water all out, and have nothing left but the 
pure juice, you will find out that our Isaac is s-e-l-f. 
" Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it 
abideth alone." And that corn of wheat is self. You 
can take a grain of corn and varnish it and hang it over 



OFFERING UP ISAAC. 187 

the mantelpiece, and it will stay there five hundred 
years. These grains have been known to live in mum- 
mies three thousand years. Keep the air away, keep 
out insects, and you can just preserve old self in the 
gilded, varnished, mummy state clear on through eter- 
nity. The devil has been nursing himself and coddling 
himself, and he is not dead yet ; he is living on self. 
But Jesus said that, " Except a corn of wheat fall into 
the ground and die, it abideth alone." 

Now, my friends, except we take our Isaac — self — 
and offer him up as Abraham did Isaac, we remain 
alone. When Abraham offered up Isaac, his only son, 
and gave him to die, right there on the spot God 
came down and declared: You have given up the grain 
of corn, you have given up the only grain of corn that 
was likely to produce any corn for this world and the 
world to come; and inasmuch as you have thus con- 
sented to die, to give up your only child and heir, in 
multiplying I will multiply you as the stars in heaven, 
that cannot be numbered. 

Now that is applicable to us to-day. Christian people 
that refuse to give up themselves, — they remain only one 
little individual self; but those Christians who consent 
to die, who consent to give up themselves as thoroughly 
to die as Abraham gave Isaac, then God will multiply 
that seed that was put into the ground a thousandfold. 
That is true of every true servant of God. And the 



188 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

small man and the little woman that are big in their own 
eyes, and are always gilding and varnishing themselves, 
and wrapping bandages around themselves, and trying 
to mummify themselves and preserve themselves like 
the old Egyptian kings did, — they live on, but they will 
never multiply. But men and women who agree to die 
and be buried out of sight are the ones that multiply 
themselves spiritually a thousandfold ; and the same 
covenant God made with Abraham on Mount Moriah 
He will make with you to-day here. Men are on the 
wrong track when they are running for popularity. If 
a man wants fame, if he will just consent to die God 
will insure his fame. 

In this dying process there were three things men- 
tioned : the wood, the knife, and the fire. Isaac was a 
lad. He may have been nearly grown, but his father 
took the very wood that was to burn him up and put it 
upon the lad's shoulder. When Jesus went out to His 
crucifixion He bore His own cross, as Isaac did. He 
carried the wood on which he should die. Every one 
of us that comes into the deeper life and into the more 
intimate fellowship with God must carry the wood on 
which we are to die. No angel can carry your bundle 
of wood for you ; no creature. 

What is the wood ? The wood in the case of Isaac 
was a bundle of dry sticks that would make a fire to 
burn him up. The wood in the case of Jesus Christ 



OFFERING UP ISAAC. 189 

was a heavy cross on which His arms were to be bound 
and His feet pinned. What is your piece of wood? 
Your piece of wood, the cross on which you are to die, 
the altar on which you are to undergo this death of 
selfishness, of unbelief and sin, may be one of a thou- 
sand things. It is some trial, some duty, some point in 
your life's history, some one thing that is to be the cross 
on which you are to die. You may kneel at a thousand 
camp meetings or a thousand altars, and pray all 
around and all over, but every time you pray there is 
always one stick of wood that stands right in front of 
your eyes. You pray straight up against it every time. 
It is something that you must consent to do, or con- 
sent to be, or consent to suffer. Some people will do 
anything, but they don't want to he anything. Other 
persons want to he but they do not want to suffer. 
There are some people willing to work themselves to 
death provided God will let them off that they may not 
"be" something. They do not want to " he holy." 
They do not want to " he tender-hearted." They do not 
want to " he merciful." They do not want to " he per- 
fect." Some time ago a preacher was preaching about 
if you want to be holy go to work and do something ; 
take a basket and go and help somebody. A man back 
in the congregation said, " The Lord knows I would take 
two baskets if I thought it would do any good." He 
would do anything, but he wouldn't consent to come 
down and just be a small man for God, 



190 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

Your neighbor or your friend could not guess what 
your stick of wood is. God alone knows. If you 
agree to harmonize with God on that last point, that 
is the piece of wood on which you die. That is carry- 
ing your own cross. So that in coming to God, in 
coming up into this holy mountain, you draw nigh to 
Him by taking up your cross and following Christ to 
Mount Moriah. 

Next is the knife. The knife was the instrument in 
the hand of Abraham for slaying his son. Throughout 
the Bible the sword, or the knife, is an emblem of the 
Word of God. Just as Abraham took that knife to slay 
his son, God has a knife, sharper than a two-edged 
knife, piercing to the dividing asunder of soul and 
spirit and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner 
of the thoughts and intents of the heart. It is God's 
Word that cats our heart in pieces. Just as Abraham 
and the priest many years before took a sharp knife to 
slay the lamb, and then divided the lamb in pieces, God 
takes His own Word, cuts our hearts all to pieces, and 
divides our hearts as they divided the old sacrifices. 

The word "contrite" means to cut in two. A con- 
trite heart means a heart that has been cut in pieces 
with God's sharp knife. The, knife was the instrument 
in the hand of the father, and so God's Word is the in- 
strument in the hand of God by which He crucifies our 
nature. It is the Word of God that pierces the heart. 



OFFERING UP ISAAC. 191 

It is the Word of God that arouses the sinner. It is the 
Word of God, applied by the.- Holy Ghost, that makes us 
mad and then makes us glad. It is the sharp knife of 
circumcision by which God eliminates . the fleshly mind 
from the soul, and then we are said to be circumcised 
in the heart. When you are seeking a clean heart, the 
baptism of the Holy Ghost, and when you have carried 
the wood, — whatever the thing may be upon which is 
your death test, — you will find right away there will 
come some Scripture, some word of God will be handled 
by the Holy Ghost, more deathly than any executioner 
ever handled a sword. It comes to you, — some promise 
you have heard a hundred times, that you have read in 
the Bible over and over, which you have quoted, and 
never saw much meaning in it. But when that word 
comes to your heart it has an edge to it, and somehow 
you are amazed at the sharpness of it. " I will, be 
thou clean." "This is the will of God, your sanctifica- 
tion." "Wash me and I shall be whiter than snow." 
" Reckon yourselves dead to sin." Some word like that 
comes and transpierces your whole moral nature, so that 
you can feel the tingling sensation of the mighty truth 
go through your inner heart. 

What is that ? It is the Father wielding the sharp 
knife by which He slays the self of unbelief and sin. 

And then the fire, the Holy Ghost. The fire in this 
case was to have consumed Isaac, and the Holy Ghost 



192 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

will consume our offering. That fire was a type of the 
Holy Spirit's work upon earth. I have not time to 
elaborate that point. 

The next thought in this lesson comes from the con- 
versation they had when they were going up the 
mountain : " Father, behold here is the wood and the 
fire, but where is the lamb for sacrifice ? " I want to 
call your attention to the peculiarly beautiful manner in 
which Abraham put this tremendous truth upon his 
son's mind. If Abraham had gone to work and 
preached to that yonng man as we have done at times 
in the years when we were rash and unwise, he would 
have scared Isaac and caused him to have drawn back. 
Suppose he had said this to him : " Well, Isaac, you 
have asked me a hard question. It is breaking my 
heart to tell you, but the fact is, you will have to be the 
lamb to-day, and you must make up your mind to die. 
God has told me to kill you and I am going to do it." 
What anguish would have come to the mind of Isaac at 
the presentation of the awful, bloody tragedy, of the 
thought he was thus to die in his youth, and away from 
his mother ; and Abraham would have utterly defeated 
the whole enterprise. 

But that is the way many times God's truth is put 
unwisely. People go to work and they present conse- 
cration in such a horrible, miserable manner. They 
begin on the Isaac side and teach about what Isaac 



OFFERING UP ISAAC. 193 

must do. He must bleed, he must die in his youth, 
away from his mother; they pile it on, until they 
simply and utterly scare everybody away from giving 
themselves to God. Now note the Holy Ghost wisdom 
in his reply : " My son, God will provide." He did 
not say " Isaac " once. It was all on God's side, so that 
by the time Isaac reached the spot of death the Holy 
Ghost had worked in him the marvelous transforma- 
tion by which he was willing to die. 

That is just the way God wants to deal with us 
to-day. . If I go to a man who is using tobacco or to a 
woman who is wearing jewelry or to some person that 
takes a little pleasure trip on Sunday, and picture to 
them that they must give up this and that; or to 
another that he must be willing to go to Africa and die 
in the sand ; or to another that she must stay at home 
and wash dishes all her life, — that is the wrong side. 
Bless you, there are a great many persons nowadays 
that are willing to go to Mexico or China or anywhere, 
except to stand and work for God right where they are. 
You can present consecration from your own stand- 
point until the whole soul revolts and backs down. 
Whereas, if Christian people would only get around on 
God's side of the house and hear Him talk, and this 
man hold in silence for awhile, and let this thought 
come, Why, God is your Father, and God is planning 
for you ; God wants you to do this or that in order that 



194 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

He may get you where He can bless you, — if God can get 
in His presentation and you can see what entire aban- 
donment is, and you can see what entire death to self 
is from God's standpoint, by the time God has talked 
His side of the question into your soul, like Isaac you 
will be willing to die anywhere and be tied and laid on 
your piece of wood. 

There is a way to drive people from consecration by 
preaching the bare, cold, bloody bones side of the ques- 
tion. But when you once get over on God's side, and 
get hold of the fact that " God loves me and God is 
making plans for my eternity ; God takes more interest 
in me than my own parents take"; with that thought 
in your heart of the Godside, you will find that your 
heart will yield and yield, and you will give up, and the 
first thing you know the tobacco is gone and you too-, 
without intending they should go. 

Why? Because God has got the inside track on you ; 
that is why. Now if somebody had drawn a photo- 
graph of all the things that the Lord has put you 
through since you have got sanctified, and had simply 
held them out by themselves without any of the divin- 
ity in them, you would have backslidden long ago and 
gone to hell, whole crowds of you. You would have 
said, " Lord, I can't stand that : the Lord doesn't call on 
me to make these sufferings and sacrifices.*' When the 
Lord got you over to Himself and showed you His side, 



OFFERING UP ISAAC. 195 

you have gone right along, giving up here and giving 
up there, suffering here and suffering there, launching 
out here and launching out there, crossing mountains 
and crossing high seas, going through poverty and per- 
secutions, and not paying much attention to it at all. 
God puts a velvet lining into every rough shell ; God 
puts a gilding into every thunderstorm ; and God has 
put the sweetness of His music into every clattering 
crash of the world's hard tones. And if it had not been 
that God was always giving you His side of the interpre- 
tation, you would have backed down long ago. Glory 
be to God! He did not call us to raw, ugly, bloody 
bones. The call is to His loving breast. " My son, God 
will provide. Dry up your tears, my boy. I am not 
going to tell you now about the butcher knife and the 
fire ; it will scare you. I will talk to you about God 
awhile." He got that child over on to God's side, and 
then he was ready to die. 

If we could get the Church to-day on to God's side, it 
would die. If you stand out of doors and hear a man 
preach, most any preacher will irritate you ; his voice 
will sound harsh; and a great many persons get just 
near enough to God for that. If they would get near 
enough to hear God talk, without any walls between, 
close up into His loving breast, they would understand 
the divine mind better and then they would lie down 
and die for Jesus. 



196 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

Just one more thought. He stretched forth his hand 
to take the knife. I have seen pictures of the knife 
raised. It does not say so. Jesus Christ, the Angel 
Jehovah, spoke to him out of heaven, "Abraham, 
Abraham — " and he stopped right there. He did not 
say, " I have commenced now and may just as well go 
through," but he stopped, and gave a chance for God 
to talk a little to him. 

God's Word is full of fine points. It is a wonderful 
thing to go when God tells you to go. It is just as 
wonderful to stop when God says stop. You will 
all understand this. You know that when God calls 
us to some work or sacrifice, and we once make up 
our minds to go and really get started, it is so hard to 
stop. You know that we easily become attached to our 
own work. When God tells us to get out and run on 
an errand for Him, and we do not want to go at first, 
but after awhile, having made up our minds to go, are 
all full of enthusiasm and once commenced, the errand 
becomes attached to us, and we to it; so that we then 
want to go, and we do not want to stop. How many 
there are that have been rash enough to just go too far. 
It requires more wisdom not to go too far than not to 
go at all. And so Abraham had that wonderful union 
with the divine mind — I think that is the way to call 
it — that he could start his machinery when God turned 
on the steam, and he could stop when God turned on 
the air brake. 



OFFERING UP ISAAC. 197 

In this great matter of full salvation it requires entire 
consecration to start, and it requires a more thorough 
consecration and wisdom and divine prudence — not 
foolish man's prudence — to know when to stop. It 
takes more grace to walk than it does to fly or run. 
Isaiah represents the young Christians as flying, the 
middle-aged Christians as running, but the old Chris- 
tians come down to a walk. " They shall mount up 
with wings as eagles." Some people think that is won- 
derful, to fly. Well, the first effect of the Holy Ghost 
will be to make you fly. The second effect is to make 
you run, and then to come down to a walk with God. 
They shall fly, then they shall run, and then they shall 
walk and not faint. 

It is just on this point that has occurred all the fanat- 
icism and all the outlandish nonsense that has been 
attached to the modern movement of full salvation. 
Some man killed his own child, you remember, following 
Abraham. He did not follow Abraham at all, for 
Abraham heard God. When he lifted his knife God 
stayed his hand. And you will find a great deal of 
fanaticism here and yonder, everywhere, and you will 
find that all these fanatics, every one, begin here at this 
point. They have made a consecration at the start; 
they have yielded and consented to obey God. They 
climbed some mountain, but they failed to have the 
Abrahamic style of faith. They did not possess that 



198 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

Abrahamic solidity of repose in God, so that they 
could know just when God said, " My child, stop right 
along there : halt ! halt ! " I tell you, it takes as 
thorough a consecration to save us from fanaticism after 
we are sanctified, as it does to sanctify us before we are 
sanctified. Do we find here a lesson for the children of 
God ? If you want to be God's child you must consent 
to come into more intimate relationship. Look at how 
the lesson of entire consecration must be made. Look 
at your life, your death, your eternity from God's stand- 
point, instead of mustering up the horrible ghouls that 
would frighten you from God. Turn the picture that 
way, behold God's way, and you will abandon yourself 
to God to-day, to be His forever ; you will consent to 
have the sharp knife cut away the depravity from your 
nature and have the precious Holy Ghost baptize you 
with fire from on high. 

If you are seeking this experience, right where you 
are and just as you are, can you consent, right now, 
and say : I will lay down my struggles, my doubts, my 
fears, and I will consent here and now that the Lord 
may take me and cleanse me, and fill me with the Holy 
Ghost? 



CHAPTER XIII. 

LEARNING OBEDIENCE. 

"Who in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers 
and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was 
able to save him from death, and was heard in that he feared: 

" Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things 
which he suffered; 

"And being made perfect, he became the author of eternal sal- 
vation unto all them that obey him." — Heb. 5: 7-9. 

THIS Scripture may contain one or two things that 
seem to be a little difficult. We are taught here 
that Jesus learned obedience by the things which He 
suffered, and we are also taught that by His sufferings 
and obedience He was made perfect ; and that being 
made perfect, He was fitted to be the author of salva- 
tion to all who obey Him. 

The question comes : Was not Christ divine and per- 
fect and complete from the beginning ? Did He need 
suffering in order to teach Him obedience ? Did He need 
obedience in order to make Him perfect ? There seems 
to be implied in this language that Jesus was very 
imperfect, and that there was in Him a liability to diso- 
bedience, etc. Now I do not believe the Scripture 
teaches this. When the Lord explains a Scripture to 



200 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

me which contains something that people stumble over, 
I just delight to take that Scripture, to untangle the 
knot, by the help of God, and make that very Scripture 
that seemed to be a barrier to spiritual life, a stepping- 
stone to our own faith and experience. 

I want to explain this Scripture : first in reference to 
Jesus, and secondly in reference to ourselves. Learning 
obedience through suffering ! Jesus did not have to 
suffer in order to get an obedient heart. Jesus had 
it by nature, or by inheritance ; by His own nature, 
for it was pure and holy. He did not inherit depravity 
as others do. He did not have the carnal mind within 
Him. Jesus brought into this world with Him the 
essence, the spirit, of perfect obedience. He was born 
in an atmosphere of perfect obedience. The trend and 
drift and constitution and bias of His whole will and 
heart was in the line of obedience. There was never 
one atom of rebellion, there never was one scintilla of 
disobedience, in the outward or in the inner life. He 
never did one single thing, and He never had a disposi- 
tion to do a single thing, to displease God. Every 
breath He drew and every act He performed and every 
outgoing of His heart pleased God. 

How can I assert all that? Because God the Father 
asserts it. " This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well 
pleased." How can we take that broad statement and 
reconcile it with this Scripture, " He learned obedience 



LEARNING OBEDIENCE. 201 

by the things which he suffered"? I answer, that in 
obeying the Father, the principle of obedience which He 
possessed in His nature had to be brought out and 
unfolded day by day and year by year, and the principle 
of obedience had to have ten thousand forms of applica- 
tion. And He as a man — for He was perfect man and 
perfect God — had to learn like any other man has to 
learn ; as a child, as an infant, as a little boy He had to 
learn. 

When He stayed behind His father and mother in 
Jerusalem with the doctors and the lawyers, His whole 
heart was bent on beginning right there and doing the 
work of His ministry, — teaching and explaining God's 
Word,— for He saw that the doctors of divinity were all 
blind as bats ; and a great many of them are yet. He 
saw that the Church was dying and starving for spirit- 
ual light, and His little heart reveled in unfolding 
these things. That was perfectly innocent and per- 
fectly pleasing to God. And yet He found out, after 
being corrected by His mother, under the instruction of 
the Holy Ghost, that His time had not come yet ; that 
He must go home and be subject unto His parents. In 
doing that there was mental suffering; and yet there 
was not one atom of disobedience toward God on the 
one side or His mother on the other. He had to con- 
sent to hold His mind back for all those long years, 
while He was eager to save and bless the world ; and in 



202 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

that very act that little boy had to undergo a mental 
suffering. He learned how to apply the spirit of obedi- 
ence on that very point, and it involved suffering; it 
involved a degree of self-denial to forego that privilege, 
so that the principle of obedience was applied all the 
way along. Doubtless in His playing with the boys, 
doubtless through the early years and all through His 
life, — for you know that only a small part of the life of 
Christ is written, — in ten thousand forms, in an innu- 
merable number of cases, the principle of obedience was 
unfolded day by day and applied to this circumstance 
or that occasion ; and in the applying of the principle of 
obedience He suffered, and He learned what obedience 
was, in His practical life, by the things He suffered. 

You must remember that the principle of obedience 
is one thing, — that lies in the heart, — but the applica- 
tion of that principle is something else. There is no 
suffering in the principle of obedience. The element of 
loyalty lies in the heart, and there is no suffering in 
that. But when you take that principle of loyalty, of 
obedience in the heart, and come to apply it in the 
outward life, it necessarily involves a great deal of 
suffering. And Jesus learned how to apply the princi- 
ple of obedience by the things which He suffered. 

When a boy volunteers to go into the navy, and gets 
a naval suit on, walks the deck, and is gay and jolly 
with his comrades, he has in his young heart the princi- 



LEARNING OBEDIENCE. 203 

pie of loyalty to his government ; but he knows no more 
of what that principle is going to involve than anything 
in the world. When he gets on the high seas, when 
sickness breaks out and he is in a foreign port, when he 
goes into a naval engagement and encounters storm and 
strife, and this extends over years, he finds that the 
principle of loyalty which he had in his heart must be 
unfolded day by day, month by month, and year by 
year ; and as that principle of loyalty is applied on this 
point and on that point, it may involve a great deal of 
suffering. Thus he never knows what obedience is, in 
its practical form, until he has gone through the career 
of a sailor. Then he not only knows what the princi- 
ple is, but he knows what it involves in the line of life. 

Now that illustrates Jesus. Jesus had in His heart 
the perfect, untarnished principle of obedience ; but 
Jesus, as He went through life and through His public 
ministry, down to His grave and up to His cross, found 
that that principle of loyalty to the Father was con- 
stantly meeting applications here and there and yonder, 
on this point and that point, so that nearly every step 
of His life involved some suffering. 

The sufferings of Christ have never been written 
down. His sufferings on the cross, His sufferings in the 
garden have been alluded to. But all His living was a 
life of suffering. It must be so, because His nature 
was so utterly at variance with all human nature. As 



204 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

a little boy He found nothing but bundles of selfishness 
in every child He met. As a young'man He found noth- 
ing but bundles of depravity in every young person 
around Him. And every time He came in contact with 
the uncouthness and unkindness and corruption and 
depravity and blindness of childhood and youth or 
maturer years — all through His life His soul was under- 
going a perpetual crucifixion. He was feeling con- 
stantly the sharp, keen briers of the depraved minds 
that lay around Him everywhere. He felt like a tender- 
footed child walking through an immense brier patch 
and every step was on thorns that drew the blood. And 
so He went right through life, applying at every step 
the principle of perfect obedience ; and when He got 
to the end He had learned what obedience was, not only 
in principle, but in the application. 

Now the next thought about Christ is this : that this 
learning obedience by the things which He suffered, 
although He was a Son, made Him perfect as a Savior. 
Being made perfect through sufferings, He became the 
Author of eternal salvation unto all who obey Him. 
The sufferings of Christ did not make Him perfect as a 
man. The sufferings of Christ did not make Him per- 
fect in His moral nature. He was holy, pure, harmless, 
undefiled, and separate from sinners. So that He was 
perfect in that sense. But remember that there are dif- 
ferent kinds of perfection. There is a perfection of the 



LEARNING OBEDIENCE. j 205 

moral nature ; there is a perfection of your life work. 
Jesus as a man was perfect without sufferings. Suffer- 
ings did not make His heart any cleaner. Sufferings did 
not make Him any more humble, did not make Him any 
more loyal, did not make Him anything in His moral 
character. It simply brought out and intensified and 
eliminated that character. But in order to be a Savior 
He must not only have a clean heart and a pure soul and 
perfect mind, but He must undergo long experiences 
that will qualify Him to be the Savior of sinners. Now 
remember that Jesus' perfection, spoken of in this text, 
is a perfection simply in order to be a Savior. He 
was made perfect as a Savior by His sufferings. He 
was made perfect by suffering on the cross and by suf- 
fering in the garden. Jesus could never have saved us 
by His moral perfection. And do you know this text is 
one of the great many texts that utterly refute the sen- 
timentalism of modern times ? I suppose — let me make 
a guess now — I suppose seven-tenths (perhaps not that 
many — one-half) of all the so-called sermons and talks 
to-day in Boston, on any average Sunday, are on this 
line : " Jesus is a good man ; His was a beautiful life, 
beautiful miracles." It is beautiful, beautiful, beautiful 
Jesus, and the beautiful example of heroism of Jesus, 
and all that , and it is preached that we are to imitate, 
imitate, imitate. That is a gospel of monkeys, and a 
great many monkeys preach that kind of gospel ; theo- 



206 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

logical monkeys, ecclesiastical monkeys. The Church 
is full of ecclesiastical monkeys, that' preach simply that 
we are to imitate the beautiful life of Jesus. You 
might as well tell the frog to imitate the song of the 
nightingale. How can a depraved, wretched, miserable, 
impure-hearted man or woman imitate the spotless Jesus 
until they get the very nature of that Jesus inside of 
them? We are taught here that it is the suffering of 
Jesus that qualified Him to be a Savior. I want you to 
know that the beautiful Jesus saves nobody. I mean 
to say this, that Jesus does not save any man by His 
holiness, His loveliness, His consistency, His nobility. 
Jesus does not save us by the traits of His character ; 
Jesus saves us by suffering and dying. Jesus could 
have lived a perfectly beautiful, spotless life, and 
walked back to heaven and left us to sink into hell, the 
whole of us ; and we would never have found pardon 
but for His suffering. My text says it was the suffer- 
ings of Christ that qualified Him to be our Savior. 
Now you take that, and lay it down by the side of 
Universalism and Swedenborgianism and Unitarianism 
in this country. It gives a light on all these things. 
Jesus would never have been able to save us by all His 
miracles, by all His life, by all His teachings, by all 
His beauty, by all the intrinsic glory of His nature, 
unless He had suffered ; and my text says it was the 
sufferings of Christ that qualified Him to be a Savior. 



LEARNING OBEDIENCE. 207 

That is why, being made perfect, — not as a man, for 
He had that to begin with, — being made perfect as a 
Savior through suffering, He became the Author of 
eternal salvation. 

A great many men say they preach Christ, Christ, 
Christ ! I want you to know you can " preach Christ " 
a hundred years and get no converts. St. Paul says, 
"We preach Christ crucified ! " It is that that does 
the business. Preach Christ and leave off the crucified, 
and you and your people will be lost. 

And so Jesus was qualified to be a Savior. His suf- 
ferings were the things that made Him to be our Savior. 

Now apply it to us. We are His disciples, and we 
are united to Him by faith; and the same Scriptures 
which apply to Jesus apply in a modified sense to all 
the members of His body. This lesson would do us no 
good if we did not apply it to ourselves. We are to 
learn obedience by the things which we suffer, just 
like Christ. When do we get the spirit of obedience? 
By nature we are rebellious, disobedient, stubborn and 
self-willed. By nature we do not obey God. How can 
we ever get into the zone of obedience? We never 
learn, we never have in us, the principle of obedience 
in its real genuine form, until we are regenerated. 
When we are " born of God," God plants within us all 
the elements of His life, all the elements of Christ's 
life, — humility, faith, hope, love, perseverance, long- 



208 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

suffering, obedience, and all the graces of the Spirit. 
Every part of Jesus' life, — the various traits of His 
life, the various instincts of that life, the various long- 
ings of that life — is implanted in the heart that is 
born again, that is regenerated by the Holy Ghost. 
So that when your sins are pardoned, and the Holy 
Ghost implants within you the new life, the divine 
life, you have within you something that is divine, 
something you never had before ; and in that new life 
you have in you the element of obedience. Thus every 
young convert begins to inquire, " Now what can I do 
for my Lord ? How can I serve my God ? Heavenly 
Father, what wouldst thou have me to do ? " Every soul 
starts out from this wonderful work of regeneration 
under the impulse of obedience. That is why a young 
convert is the best candidate in the world for full sal- 
vation. A young convert has not been tampered with 
by any Zinzendorfs, has not been up and down with 
liberals and old backsliders. A young convert has 
within him the germs and impulses of the life of Jesus 
in its original and unsophisticated manner. It has not 
been tampered with. The young convert is ready, says 
John Wesley, to pluck out the eye, to cut off the hand. 
He is ready to obey the Lord. That is why he is pre- 
pared to be led on to full surrender, to full consecration. 
He has got obedience in His nature. 

But that principle of obedience is not perfect. I will 



LEARNING OBEDIENCE. 209 

tell you why. Although you are born of God, and 
although the principle of obedience is implanted within 
your heart, at the same time there are remains of the 
carnal mind. Jesus had no depravity. He had nothing 
in His heart to draw Him back. He had nothing in 
His heart to tone down His obedience. Every young 
convert has a heart that is prone to obey God ; he is not 
prone to wander. The young convert is prone to read 
his Bible, is prone to go to the first prayer meeting he 
can find, and he is prone to stand and testify. And yet 
right along the line of his service there is just enough 
depravity left in his nature to cripple and hamper and 
embarrass and make him timid and shy, and to some 
times overcome the principle of obedience ; so that as 
he starts to obey God he finds something drawing him 
back and discouraging him. He has in him the ele- 
ment of obedience, but it is not perfect obedience. 

What does he need ? If he presses on after God he 
will find out that there is in him still a remnant of 
rebellion, --not universal, but partial rebellion. He 
will rebel on some things. He will obey the Lord 
on nine points and rebel on the tenth. He will 
say "yes" to God on eleven points, and say "no" to 
God on one point. He has partial obedience. There is 
something lacking in his faith. There is something 
lacking in his obedience. He finds out that he needs a 
further cleansing, a deeper work of grace, to remove out 



210 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

of his mind this latent murmuring, this latent rebellion, 
and this principle of disloyalty. 

Then he comes under the baptism of the Holy Ghost, 
and under that baptism the principle of loyalty is per- 
fected ; he seeks and finds the clean heart and full 
deliverance ; so that he comes out from that cleansing 
fountain realizing in his heart that his whole heart goes 
one way, and that he obeys God willingly and gladly. 
Now he will consent to do anything or to die for the 
Lord Jesus. Now he lias in a certain sense reached the 
Christ life. But I want you to take that in a modified 
form. When your heart is cleansed from all depravity 
and carnality, while there is a restoration to the Christ 
life, properly speaking, remember that you never can 
have the identical strength and vigor of the Christ life, 
for this reason : your heart may be pure, you may be 
perfectly cleansed from all depravity and all sin, but 
you have inherited certain things. Your hereditj- has 
crippled you ; your past sins have crippled you ; your 
memory and the association of ideas. Now, remember, 
Jesus never had any inheritance of sin, Jesus never 
had any imperfection ; so that it is not correct, it is not 
Bible, to say that in everything a sanctified believer is 
as perfect as Christ. That will not be true, because you 
have a thousand frailties resulting from habit, from 
heredity, from association. Although we are cleansed, 
although we are pure, yet there is a frailty and weak- 



LEARNING OBEDIENCE. 211 

ness ; there are liabilities to error, there are liabilities to 
fanaticism, liabilities to foolishness, liabilities to non- 
sense ; things that were not in Jesus. But so far as 
God is concerned, so far as your connection with the 
Lord is concerned, you are now restored to the Christ 
life, and you now have, in the evangelical sense, in the 
New Testament sense, perfect obedience ; that is, evan- 
gelical obedience, not angelic obedience ; that means 
gospel obedience. Now you begin the Christ life 
proper. Your conversion was but a preparatory step. 
Your sanctification introduces you to the real Christ 
life. 

Think of all the lectures and talks given to people 
telling them indiscriminately to live the Christ life, the 
Christ life, the Christ life. Bless your dear soul, it is 
all very well to talk that way, but you have got to be 
convicted and converted and sanctified to get where you 
can begin the Christ life. You have got to get where 
your heart is broken, melted, and purged and baptized 
before you can begin to live the life that the infant 
Jesus lived : the life pure from sin. 

Moreover, you have got to learn obedience in this 
sanctified life by the things you suffer, just as the Lord 
did. " But," you say, " when we are sanctified why 
don't we obey the Lord ? " Like Christ in our text, 
we are to unfold the principle. You will find that as 
you live along in the life of faith, in the sanctified life, 



212 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

this principle of obedience will bring you up, day by 
day and year by year, against a thousand and one things 
that involve pain and suffering. The sanctified life is 
the most joyous life ; it is the most peaceful life ; it is 
the most glorious life. But I want you to know it is 
the life of the greatest suffering in this world, in a cer- 
tain sense. I am not preaching long-facedness to you. 
I am talking facts. I want you to know the sanctified 
Christian has got to live right against everything in the 
world, — against every carnal, depraved element in the 
world, in his home, in his business, in his shop, in his 
store, along the street. I want you to know that he has 
affections and feelings that are more keenly alive than 
ever before. A sanctified man can feel an insult keener 
than ever before ; and while he does not strike back, 
does not give back the curse, does not give back the lie 
nor the blow, while he does not resist, he is at the same 
time more delicately and keenly conscious of an insult 
than ever before. Sanctification elevates and purifies 
all the affections and all the sensibilities of the soul, so 
that it is a great mistake to think that the higher you 
rise in your knowledge of God and salvation and like- 
ness to Christ, the more insensible you become. Brutish 
people, people like dogs and cats, who dare to give the 
lie and the blow, — they are always of coarse, animal, vul- 
gar sensibilities. The more refined the man is, the less 
he resents an insult and the less he resents the ordinary 



LEARNING OBEDIENCE. 213 

evils of life. Jesus suffered most keenly, and yet He 
showed no resentment and no retaliation. 

Your very love to God involves suffering. You love 
God and you long to see Jesus, and sometimes sancti- 
fied hearts get homesick. Life becomes a mere tread- 
mill, and death is one of the easiest things in the world 
to a sanctified Christian. It takes a great deal more 
religion to live than to die. A great many persons 
think, If I could only get dying grace. Why, bless your 
soul, it takes ten times more grace to live than to die — 
to undergo the temptations, to endure all the assaults of 
the devil. How he will assault you ! How he will come 
at you like a tornado ! To endure all the waitings ! The 
higher men rise toward God, the more God will test 
their faith. And He will test it on points that nobody 
but you and God understand. All these testings 
involve suffering and pain, a suffering and pain you 
cannot tell to anybody ; and yet right through it there 
goes obedience, unswerving loyalty and obedience. You 
are learning how to apply obedience. In the first gush 
of your sanctified joy you said, " O Lord, I will do any- 
thing! go anywhere, Lord! to Africa, China, or Japan; 
anywhere with Jesus." And you meant it. The Holy 
Ghost put that in your heart. The Lord takes you at 
your word, and when the time comes for you to do the 
thing you promised to do it is not just play. You will 
find out, like the most of us find out, that in carrying 



214 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

out the principle of your obedient heart you will have 
to suffer ; and that very suffering simply demonstrates 
and proves to angels and devils that you are true. God 
knew }^ou were true to begin with, but God wants 
you to know you are true. God wants the angels to 
know it. 

You go to the store to buy a spool of cotton. You 
put it in j our pocket or your little satchel and carry it 
home. Now, you sit down and stitch, stitch, stitch. 
You take the spool of cotton and unfold and unroll the 
thread, and use it all up into garments until the cotton 
is all gone. You get the clean heart and the baptism of 
the Holy Ghost, and you have got the spool of cotton. 
" Lord, I will obey. Here I am ; anything you say I 
will do." You are happy and it is all right. The Lord 
sajs, " Yery well." By and by the Lord begins to unroll 
you, and He begins to utilize all that spool of cotton, and 
He begins to have you do this and do that, until the 
thread of obedience that was in your heart has been 
stitched into a thousand garments of history. And 
when you die the walls of your life are draped with the 
drapery which has been stitched and made by the thread 
of obedience from your own heart. How many of us 
are learning this ! Do you know we are making his- 
tory? Jesus made history on this earth. He had a 
career before He came into the world and He had a 
career after He went back to heaven. But do you know, 



LEARNING OBEDIENCE. 215 

all through the endless cycles of eternity, the angels, 
the saints, the redeemed ones, will everlastingly be 
rehearsing the thirty-three years spent in Galilee ? Just 
so you and I may live on forever and. forever in heaven, 
and God may utilize us in distant worlds and distant 
ages ; but all through eternity we will be but carrying 
out the lessons of the obedience of the lives we are now 
living. We are to learn obedience ; and this qualifies us, 
not to be a Savior, but to be coworkers ivith the Savior. 
Just as Jesus' sufferings qualified Him to be a Savior, so 
when we learn obedience by the things we suffer it 
qualifies us to cooperate with Him in saving the world. 
We learn wisdom, tact, skill. 

Oh, it is a wonderful thing to live this Christ life ! 
I sometimes think we do not appreciate it. Suppose 
Jesus were taken out of your soul to-night, and the Holy 
Ghost, and every particle of salvation, and you were to 
go out of that door a mere animal man or woman, devoid 
of every particle of divine grace, how much of your life 
would be worth anything? The salvation life is the 
only life worth living. In your home, in your business, 
in your conversation, in your correspondence, it is what 
Jesus has put in you that is the only thing worth count- 
ing on. All the rest is not worth mentioning. 

So, my friends, we are living a wonderful life. Day 
by day, without our knowing it, if we are true to God, 
God is working in us and with us, and He is in a most 



216 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

wonderful sense reproducing the life of His Son in the 
soul of each and every true believer. . Oh, what a priv- 
ilege, to have that blessed, adorable, Jesus life in our 
souls ! 

Now I trust, as we separate and go out through the 
winter days that are before us, that Jesus will anoint 
our hearts ; send us out from this convention not only 
with more joy and more faith and love, but with more 
steel in our backbones ; send us out with a resolve to 
stand true. Although crosses and sorrow and tears 
may come, they are only a part of the great contract. 
These things do not prove that we are backsliding, nor 
that we are disloyal to God. They only prove that we 
are walking in the footsteps with Him who, " though he 
were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things 
which he suffered." 



CHAPTER XIV. 

THE PRINCIPLES OF FAITH. 

" These all died in faith, not having received the promises, "but 
having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and 
embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pil- 
grims on the earth." — Heb. 11: 13. 

THE' expression " these " refers to the patriarchs and 
the believers in the early ages, when they had no 
chnrch and no Bible and no Sunday schools and no 
hymn books and no creeds, when they simply had God 
and salvation, although He does enumerate a great 
many of these old disciples that were believers in the 
Jewish Church. 

These all died in faith. They died, but the faith 
didn't die. They died, but the faith went straight on 
through the grave and up into Paradise. These all died 
according to faith, the margin reads. They died in har- 
mony with their faith ; they died in agreement with 
their faith. That is, they believed God, were justified 
and sanctified, and providentially guided and providen- 
tially delivered and wonderfully helped by believing 
God and His promises. They lived according to faith ; 

217 



218 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

they died according to faith. They simply took up the 
faith measurement and the faith life all the way through. 
These all died in faith, not having received the prom- 
ises. That should be, not having received the fulfill- 
ment of the promises, because they did receive the 
promises. They had the promises, but they didn't live 
long enough to see the fulfillment of the promises. And 
when it says here that they died not having received 
the promises, it simply means, not having received the 
fulfillment, or the end, or the termination, of the 
promises. 

The promises that are here spoken of were the prom- 
ises that refer to the coming of Jesus and the descent of 
the Holy Ghost and the revivals of religion and the out- 
pouring of the Holy Spirit and the resurrection of the 
dead and the general judgment and rewards and pun- 
ishments and a new heaven and a new earth and a 
glorious everlasting life beyond this world. These 
promises covered all the territory that the promises 
cover now; and these men died, these women died, 
before Christ was born, before the Holy Ghost was 
poured out in full measure, before the Christian Church 
was formed, and the}^ did not receive the fulfillment of 
the promises. 

But the next line says they saw them afar off. They 
saw down the vista of time the days in which we are 
living. They saw the great things connected with the 



THE PRINCIPLES OF FAITH. 219 

life of Jesus and the Christian Church. They saw 
them by faith, and they believed just as really as we 
who enjoy them to-day. 

There are three things in this verse that are mentioned 
descriptive of the kind of faith that these people had. 
There are three elements to true, saving faith. The 
first is, they were persuaded of them ; the second is, they 
embraced them ; the third is, they confessed. Persua- 
sion, embracement, and confession : these are the three 
things mentioned in this verse as descriptive of the faith 
of the patriarchs and of true faith now. I ask your 
attention briefly to this threefold type of faith, or faith 
in its three forms. 

Faith has a history to it, a biography to it, a biology. 
Faith has a natural history, as much as a man has or 
a tree or anything else. Faith has its incipiency, its 
beginnings, and then it has its maturings and its results ; 
so that faith has a history in our experience, in our own 
nature ; it has these various forms to it. 

Now the first step in faith, the first thing in it, is to be 
persuaded. There are two words used for faith ; one 
is u faith" and the other is "believing." The difference 
between faith and believing is this : faith describes the 
thing itself as it lies in the heart, the principle of faith 
in the heart ; but the word " believing " describes the 
activity of that faith, the motion, the movement, the 
working, the activity of it. The word " air " is a name, 



220 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

a noun that designates the atmosphere we breathe. It 
is in this house. It fills the earth and fills all the 
heavens ; the atmosphere, or the air. Now the word 
" wind " describes the air in motion. When the atmos- 
phere is perfectly stationary it is called air, but when 
the same air is in motion it is called wind. 

Now that is just an illustration of the difference 
between faith and believing. Faith is the principle liv- 
ing in the heart, residing in the heart ; it is lying there 
ready for action, just as the atmosphere in this house is 
ready for movement at any time there should be a con- 
cussion. Whereas " believing " is a word that describes 
the movement of faith ; it is activity and energy in going 
out toward Jesus and toward the promises and toward 
God and toward any object of faith. So that " believing " 
is the word that is more applicable to ourselves. 

Now the first thing in this faith or this believing is to 
be persuaded. To be persuaded is to be thoroughly 
convinced of the truth of the promises. It is an inward 
conviction ; it is a deep, radical conviction in the heart 
and mind that such and such things are true. And that 
kind of faith is the basis of all the other steps of faith. 
A sinner must have this before he repents — before a 
man repents even. Faith lies, in a certain measure, at 
the very beginning of repentance, for the man would 
never repent if he did not believe there was a hell. 
People talk in a nonsensical, sentimental way about 



THE PRINCIPLES OF FAITH. 221 

serving God from love and coming to Christ from love. 
Well, that will do very well after you have learned to 
love Him and got His love in your heart, but the real 
sinner knows no more about the love of God than an 
Icelander knows about an orange grove ; not a bit. 
Men do not serve God from love until after they get 
over into the zone of love. When a sinner is away out 
on the frigid zone, where he does not feel any emotions 
of love, he begins to weep and feel bad and cry and 
bestir himself and say, " God be merciful to me a sinner." 
But he would never make that cry unless he was con- 
vinced in his soul that there was a hell and he was going 
to it ; and if there were no hell we would never get 
another man converted in ten thousand years. If 
hell is not true there is no need of repentance nor sal- 
vation. " Let us eat and drink ; for to-morrow we die." 
So there is an inward conviction that I have got to die. 
A man is convinced right there, — I have got to die. It 
comes home to A No. 1, — I have got to die and I am not 
fit to die, and if I die as I am I am lost. And there is a 
conviction of eternity and of a hell and a heaven and of 
a God to meet and of a judgment day. He may not 
know the details, but the great facts are there. 

Now that is the beginning of faith ; and by being con- 
vinced of that, tfren there comes the movement of that 
faith, which leads him to repentance ; and as he repents 
and forsakes his sins and confesses his sins and listens 



222 LOVE ABOUNDING, 

to God's words and the promises that are quoted to him 
either by the Holy Ghost or by some Christian friend, 
by and by he sees Jesus to be the Sin Bearer and the 
Atoner for his sins, and he is enabled to lay hold on 
Jesus as having borne his sins on the tree, and to accept 
Jesus Christ as a substitute for his own sins and his 
own penalty. And so there he believes in Jesus, and 
then comes pardon and regeneration and the witness of 
God's Spirit. 

And it is just so in seeking sanctification. No person 
ever will begin seeking sanctification until they are 
thoroughly convinced that the thing is true. No person 
will seek sanctification until he is convinced absolutely 
that he has an unclean heart. People who are good 
enough people, people who can soothe themselves down, 
people who can live like other people live, people who 
can measure themselves by themselves and play the 
fool in that way, — those kind of people never get a 
clean heart. Nobody gets a clean heart on this earth, 
no Christian, until he is convinced that he needs it. 
There is a conviction that this thing is taught in God's 
Word ; he is persuaded that these things are true. 

Now you ask, How is it that this first step of faith, 
this inward conviction, this inward persuasion — how is 
that formed, how is that generated ? Faith has a begin- 
ning ; faith has a formative state ; faith has a birth or 
a creation ; and will you ask me how faith is generated, 



THE PRINCIPLES OF FAITH. 223 

how the thing ever begins in the heart ? I will tell you, 
and I will tell you just because the Bible told me ; I 
have learned it out of this Book. 

Faith cometh by hearing. That is the way it is born. 
You have in your soul the capacity of believing ; God 
has given you the machinery of believing. You have 
got the adaptability, you have got the faculty, you have 
the capacity of trusting and believing in your. soul. 
You have got that to begin with ; that is born in you ; 
God made that. Now when you hear God's Word 
clearly .preached in an evangelical manner, the pure 
gospel, — not the mixed gospel, not the trashy gospel or 
the trashy way of preaching the gospel (there is no 
trashy gospel) ; when you hear the pure Word of God, 
in a book or tract or paper, or when you hear it 
preached in a pulpit, or in conversation in some way or 
other ; when you hear the pure Word of God preached, 
that is adapted to your case and suitable to your needs, 
the preaching of that Word comes in contact with your 
intelligence and reason and moral nature. And the con- 
junction of your soul and God's Word gives birth to 
faith, just exactly as the effect must follow the cause. 
You take a positive and a negative electric current and 
keep them separate and there will never be any action. 
There is a negative current already on hand in every 
piece of water, in every piece of iron, in every grain of 
sand. There is a negative current all the time. Now 



224 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

you produce a positive current of electricity, and let the 
negative and the positive come together, and you will 
have the electric spark. 

Now you have got the negative of faith in you all the 
time. You have got the brain, mind, conscience, affec- 
tions, will, — the regular constitution of man's moral 
nature. That is inside of you. God has made and put 
it in. That is your negative. Now you hear God's 
Word preached ; and the more you hear it the better, and 
the more you hear and understand the more you feed 
upon God's Word ; and God's Word is the positive cur- 
rent. And when that comes in contact with the intelli- 
gence, reason, memory, conscience, of your moral nature, 
faith is born by the copulation of God's Word with your 
heart. Now you hear of infidels and people of free 
theories and loose theories, people who have not got 
half the brains they think they have, who go about talk- 
ing as if faith was an absurd thing, as if faith was some 
mere will-o'-the-wisp, as if you could believe what you 
pleased. Faith is no more accidental than a current of 
electricity is accidental. The men who hear the Word 
of God preached the plainest and the best are always 
the strongest believers ; the men who sit under the 
strongest gospel are the strongest believers all the 
time ; and the more you get God's Word united to your 
moral nature the more belief you have got in you, for 
faith is always the product of the union of the Word 
and heart. 



THE PRINCIPLES OF FAITH. 225 

That is the way faith is born ; it comes by hearing, 
and hearing by the Word of God. So it does not matter 
whether a man is a sinner or a Christian, if he comes 
in contact with the pure Word of God he will have a 
phase of faith , he will have faith to produce conviction ; 
and that faith will lead on under God's Word to justifi- 
cation, and under God's Word that faith will go on to 
sanctification, and it will go on clear through. 

So we are to be persuaded. O to be sure ! to have a 
conviction ! How I abominate a trifler in religion ! I 
can have compassion on a poor fellow who stumbles and 
falls down and gets up again, and a man that is a sinner 
and misguided and makes mistakes, or even goes off into 
fanaticisms. Anything but a man that jokes and 
laughs over the deep, sacred things of God ! 

Now the great foundation facts of these old patri- 
archs were that they were persuaded that certain things 
were real. Now that is the thing just born, that is the 
faith just born. There are lots of Christians who talk 
like this, and you think they are describing the highest 
kind of faith. I am describing a little bit of baby faith, 
just born. That is the first stage. 

The next stage is embracement. They not only were 
persuaded that certain things were verities and realities, 
but they went and embraced these promises ; put their 
arms around the promises, hugged them to their hearts, 
identified themselves with the promises, and stood on 
the promises and got under the blood. 



226 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

What is it to embrace a promise ? Well, the Word 
itself is very expressive. But to embrace a promise as 
these patriarchs did means that we are to identify our- 
selves with it for weal or woe, for life or death, through 
thick or thin, come what will. We launch out on 
that ship, we walk out on that bridge, we put ourselves 
in that box, we stand on that promise. It is to iden- 
tify our fortunes, our welfare, for time and for eternity, 
with the promises held out to us, — whether I go to 
heaven or hell, whether I am saved or lost. It is to put 
my soul, my case, my happiness, my well being, for 
both worlds, upon God's Word and God's promise and 
God's Son, and be willing to venture and risk my all and 
in all upon God's promises. That is to embrace them. A 
great many seekers come up to God's promises gingerly 
and tenderfootedly, and kind of handle them with kid 
gloves, and try to believe, and, "I am hoping and be- 
lieving," and, " I hope I have a hope," and, " I believe I 
am believing." They trust they are trusting and they 
believe they are believing and they are hoping. Now the 
fact is, such people are trusting in their own trust. Do 
you know that your brain is awfully subtle, your mind 
is wonderfully acute, your carnality is awfully deceitful ? 
And you will find there are more gossamer webs woven 
by the treachery and the guile of your own intellect than 
you are aware of ; and you will find, without knowing 
it and without intending it, instead of trusting in Jesus 



THE PRINCIPLES OF FAITH. 227 

and trusting to His promises that people are trusting in 
their trust. They say, " Well, I am trusting in the 
Lord," and they put their trust in their own faith. 
They have got faith in their faith ; .they are believing 
in their own belief. 

Now let me say that you cannot trust your own trust. 
Your own faith will fall from under you like the air ; 
you cannot believe in your own believing. You must 
not get any disjunctive conjunction between you and 
the Lord Jesus, — no " if " nor " and " nor " but " nor 
" suppose " nor " maybe " nor " I think " nor " I hope " 
nor " I trust." There is to be a coming of the soul down 
upon God's promises so as to embrace the promises; 
not even a piece of paper, not even a piece of fine linen, 
nothing between the naked heart and the naked Word 
of God, nothing to intervene. You can take two 
plates of glass, and you need not grease them nor oil 
them nor put any mucilage between them ; if you will 
just take two plates of glass, and grind them perfectly 
smooth until every single infinitesimal variation has 
been rubbed away, and then remove all the rubbish and 
dust and everything and let there be absolutely nothing 
between the two plates of glass, put them together, and 
they will stick. They want no glue, they want no 
paint, they want no putty, they want no oil ; they will 
stick. You just get the glass close enough together and 
shut out the air, and they will stick and hold together ; 



228 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

but if you introduce a feather or the smallest article of 
dust, enough to let the air in, right away they wont 
hold. 

There are a great many people who want justification 
and sanctification, full salvation. They are all the time 
trying to hold on to Jesus, trying to hold on by the skin 
of their teeth, holding on tightly, awfully, trying to 
believe, struggling to hold on, trying to accept the 
cleansing, trying to let God have all. Let me say, dear 
friends, when you get where the old patriarchs did, 
when you take your heart and the promises and rub 
them together, and keep on rubbing the pumice on your 
heart until you get your heart and God's Word 
smoothly together, right close, you will find they will 
stick fast, and your heart will embrace the promise. It 
will hug it so tight that you don't want any glue to make 
it stick either. 

And that is what it means to embrace ; embrace the 
promises by having nothing between your soul and the 
promise. And so people have a kind of faith. They 
just hang on without hanging, and they just hold with- 
out holding, and they find that they can believe without 
trying, and they find the easiest thing on earth is to 
trust God and believe. Why? Because if there is 
nothing between the faith and God's Word it will do 
its own sticking. That is why it is that you find one 
person here trying to believe, while another person 
says, " I am just believing." 



THE PRINCIPLES OF FAITH. 229 

And so there is a point where the heart embraces the 
promises. Now when you get there you are getting 
pretty well along. You began back by being convinced ; 
you were persuaded ; you felt in your heart that that 
thing was absolutely true. Now you come a step far- 
ther and identify your eternity and your present salva- 
tion with the promises, and so the promises and you 
become united, and you cannot tell hardly which is 
which ; you cannot tell which is the soul and which is 
the promise. They are so married and wedded that you 
cannot tell the Promise from the Promiser and the belief 
from the believer. 

Bishop Taylor says that years and years ago he used 
to stop to think, "Now am I believing?" But he 
found that he was trusting God so constantly, so 
steadily, his faith was taking hold on the God-Man in 
such a real sense, that he never saw his faith ; he wasn't 
conscious of his faith, he was simply conscious of the 
Object of faith. That is it. 

Now, if your window glasses are kept as clean as some 
people keep theirs, you may look through a window a 
hundred times a day and never once think of the win- 
dow glass. You will never know it is there. You will 
see the carriages and the procession of people passing 
by, and you will look out and see who is there and see 
who is coming, and you will look a hundred times a 
day and never say " window glass " once, and never 



230 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

know you have window glass until you come to hoist 
the window. Why ? Because your eye is not on the 
panes of glass but on the object that lies beyond. 

And so the highest style of faith is that faith, not that 
is all the time retracing and intercepting and analyzing 
itself, but which sees Jesus and God's Word and prom- 
ises and the things of heaven, the Object of faith. 
There is nothing subjunctive in the nature of faith 
because all the attention is on the Object. Now that is 
the way to get salvation, my friends. Embrace the 
promises, identify your moral nature with the promises, 
unite yourself with them, so that practically your faith 
and the promises become one. 

The third stage of faith is confession. These con- 
fessed. They confessed a confession appropriate to 
their time and their day and generation. They con- 
fessed that they were strangers and pilgrims in the 
earth. In those times nations were young, and they 
were migrating, setting up new nations and laying the 
foundations of kingdoms and empires. Every great man 
like Abraham was off establishing a kingdom for him- 
self. But the patriarchs did not spend an}^ time build- 
ing up kingdoms and empires. They forewent all those 
things, and they were strangers and pilgrims in the 
earth, living for a city out of sight. 

Now faith must always have a confession that is 
adequate to itself in the age in which that faith exists ; 



THE PRINCIPLES OF FAITH. 231 

so that all faith has a confession to it. Faith never can 
be genuine that is locked up in the heart. Faith always 
comes out. This kind of faith that saves people always 
has a sturdy, stalwart expression to it. The expression 
of it in one age may be one thing and in another 
another. For instance, in the days of Jesus the expres- 
sion of faith was, " Thou art the Son of God." That 
was just as high a testimony as any faith could utter. 
After Christ rose from the dead the confession of faith 
was, " I believe God is able to raise the dead. Dost thou 
not believe God is able to raise the dead ? Dost thou 
think it an impossibility for God to raise the dead?" 
That was the testimony of faith in Paul's mouth. Later 
the testimony of faith was in regard to the personality 
and work of the Holy Ghost. To the age of Abraham 
and David and Jesus and Paul there has always been 
some point of faith — some confession in each and every 
age. There has been some shape or form of confession 
which has been the test of faith in that day and genera- 
tion. In the days of Martin Luther it was justification 
by faith, and a bold confession at that. In the days of 
John Wesley it went beyond, and it was a clear, ringing 
testimony that the Holy Ghost could bear witness to our 
adoption and that He could cleanse the heart from all 
sin. 

Now you will find small minded people talk about the 
salvation of God, so-called Christian people ; and min- 



232 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

isters saying, " I believe that that is the thing, provided 
there isn't much confession to it." " They believe in 
getting religion and living it without testifying to it. 
People will talk in that way the wide world over, where 
they haven't enough spiritual intelligence, — they may 
have enough political intelligence or they may have 
enough ecclesiastical intelligence ; but at all events, they 
do not know enough about the Bible to know that any 
faith that does not grow and that does not mature to 
the degree of confession is a lie and a cheat and a fraud. 
God never has, from the days of Abel until this hour, 
taken the trouble to pay any attention to faith that 
did not express itself. Dumb faith, sa} T -no thing faith, 
cowardly faith, does not have the respect of God or 
angels, and the Bible never mentions that kind of faith. 
There were a lot of conservatives and a lot of people 
that talked just that way in the Bible times ; but they 
were not worth mentioning, and God has not mentioned 
them. God mentions only that kind of faith that comes 
to the point of a grand, stalwart testimony. David 
says, " I believed, therefore have I spoken." And 
St. Paul quotes him and says, "We believe and there- 
fore speak." Why, why that "therefore"? Because 
genuine faith and an expression of that faith are abso- 
lutely essential to the existence of each other. There 
were forty years between the crossing of the Red Sea 
and the breaking of the walls around Jericho ; and yet 



THE PRINCIPLES OF FAITH, 233 

those forty years were so crowded with these miserable 
services, and these people who believed in getting salva- 
tion and saying nothing about it, — those forty years were 
so crowded with just such people, — that the Holy Ghost 
paid no attention to those forty years. And in this chap- 
ter, where the Holy Ghost is compiling and gathering 
together the blazing facts of faith and believers all down 
the ages, He piles up monument after monument of 
faith, but He drops out all the unbelievers and unbelief, 
and says, in one single sentence, " By faith they crossed 
the Red Sea," and without stopping to take breath He 
says, " By faith the walls of Jericho fell down "; and 
in that breath the Holy Ghost does not mention the 
forty years that lay between those two things. Why? 
Because God buries unbelief and unbelievers deeper 
than a thousand seas. God buries unbelief in the 
desert sand, and He pays no attention except to 
faith, and to faith that can shout and talk and testify 
and tell itself. 

And you will find God mentions only those men and 
only those events where faith shines out in a ringing 
trumpet blast. Faith must confess itself. Any thought 
in your mind that is not confessed or uttered will soon 
die. Napoleon Bonaparte had one of the most wonder- 
ful minds that this world ever produced. People say 
who are now reading Abbott's " Life of Napoleon " that 
it is absolutely marvelous. We get our knowledge 



234 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

of Napoleon Bonaparte mostly from English history. 
When we come to read it in an unbiased way it is a 
very different thing. Bonaparte could have a thought 
in his mind, and write it on a piece of paper and then 
fling the paper away, and he would never forget it. 
But he had to express the thought in words first. But 
if he ever got an idea in his head once and wrote or 
expressed it, he had it forever.. 

Now do you know that is a philosophical fact of the 
human mind ? You have a thought in your mind, and 
you say, " Some day I will write that out," and the 
some day never comes. Many times I have had things 
come in my sleep, have got up out of bed and gone and 
written it down right then and there, and I have it ; 
and if I had not it would have been gone forever. 
Nothing is ever complete, nothing is ever perfect, until 
it is expressed. The architect's plan is never perfect 
until it is expressed. The prayer, the song, the music, 
the vision, the thought, the idea, the faith, — whatever 
lies in your soul, — must be expressed ; and the con- 
fession of faith is the perfecting of faith. That is the 
idea. Faith is never perfect until expressed. 

Wiry, you have seen this thing a thousand times. 
People will be seeking a clean heart or justification, 
and we press and urge ; and they put their feet out and 
believe as if the ice might break and the Lord go away 
with them. By and by they will say, " Now I will. 



THE PRINCIPLES OF FAITH. 235 

Live or die, sink or swim, survive or perish, here I go, 
Lord." And we get them to a point where they say, 
" I can believe, I do believe, I will believe," and then 
sing it. I have seen hundreds and hundreds praying to 
God with great handkerchiefs up to their mouths, and 
they never amount to a row of pins until they get the 
handkerchief away and get their mouths open and get 
what little faith they have exercised toward God into 
the end of their tongues ; and then they will get some- 
where. I have seen hundreds and hundreds who didn't 
have one bit of feeling or emotion stand and say, 
" Well, I will dare say it ; the blood cleanses." And 
they kept on saying it, and it wasn't five minutes before 
their faith had brought down from heaven consuming 
fire. 

Why ? Because your faith is not perfect until that 
faith comes out of your mouth. , You have got to 
believe clear up and down and clear through and clear 
out. As long as you are holding yourself in with ban- 
dages around your mouth and watching to see whether 
God will save you or not, you are not trusting ; but 
when your heart goes and your tongue goes, why then 
it is all right. As long as you hold your tongue and 
hold your mouth don't you know you are reserving, and 
you say, " Well, now, if I should fail and not get the 
blessing, why, there is one thing, I can slip back 
because I have not testified to it " ? And as long as you 



236 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

fail to testify to your faith you have left an old bridge 
behind that you can retreat on , you have left a way to 
" skedaddle " and get back. But when you fling your 
soul and heart and tongue and voice out and testify, 
and let the people hear you, why then you are gone \ 
then if you backslide they can say that you professed 
holiness. 

You have got to go far enough to burn every bridge 
behind you, and stake your reputation, your character, 
your time and eternity, on God's promises, and God 
knows that ; and these conservative folks that are all 
the time trying to live here with a dumb tongue are 
simply endeavoring to steal a march on God and run 
the blockade of high heaven. 

Now, my friends, your faith is not real, perfect faith 
until it goes out of you. You must confess. You must 
make a confession that will be adequate to the emer- 
gencies of the hour. If you were living with Abraham 
you might just say, "Well, I do not propose to do like the 
heathen do, I am a pilgrim and a stranger '*, that would 
have been sufficient. If you had lived with John the 
Baptist you could have said, "I believe that is the Son 
of God." That would have been sufficient, because the 
testimony was the test. That testimony was the thing 
that killed people in those times. In the days of Martin 
Luther it was, " I believe God justifies my soul by faith 
without works." That testimony meant excommunica- 



THE PRINCIPLES OF FAITH, 237 

tion from the Church. And so in any age, in any emer- 
gency, you must bear the testimony to your faith which 
is adequate to the occasion. In your churches that tes- 
timony is, " The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth 
me from all sin." "Nothing less than that will God 
require. God will make us have a confession that is 
always adequate to test our obedience. There is no 
merit in saying the blood cleanseth ; there is no virtue 
in that. But if God requires that and you do not say 
it, the salvation of your soul depends not on the simple 
expression but depends on your obedience. It is not 
saying that the God of peace sanctifies you wholly, but it 
does depend upon how much of obedience is in it ; and 
let the confession be what it may, we must obey the 
Lord rather than men. 

The only Christians who have peace and joy, the only 
Christians who march on to victory, are the testifying 
Christians. You go without testifying and your faith 
withers and dies. 

And so you have these three forms of faith. Faith 
germinates, as I have said, from having God's Word come 
in conjunction with your moral nature. The first step 
is the persuasion ; the next is the embracement, — 
44 Here I go, Lord, I am going to identify myself with 
them " ; and the next is the confession that the work has 
been done. 

Now, my friends, if anybody wants salvation., if any- 



238 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

body wants pardon, if anybody wants a clean heart, and 
you have followed me in this simple' exegesis of these 
words, I am sure God has helped you so that you see 
now the privilege of just stepping out on the promises, 
getting under the blood, and leaving all to God, and 
resolving you will give your tongue and your testimony 
and your all. 



CHAPTER XV. 

THE BEATITUDES. 

"Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of 
heaven. 

" Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted. 

" Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth. 

" Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteous- 
ness : for they shall be rilled. 

" Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy. 

" Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God. 

"Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the chil- 
dren of God. 

" Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake: 
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." — Matt. 5: 3-10. 

CONCERNING these beatitudes, there are one or 
two errors we generally make in reading them. 
One is that some of the beatitudes belong to this world, 
and some to the heavenly world. A great many people, 
in reading the eighth verse, have the impression that 
that belongs to heaven, and though " they that mourn" 
belong to this world, yet " the pure in heart " to the 
heavenly. They are all in the present tense, so we 
need not transfer any over to heaven that belong to 
time and experience. 

Another error is that they may be divided up accord- 

239 



240 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

ing as they suit us, one to get one and one another, 
like a loaf of bread cut up into slices, each one to take 
his or her slice. The fact is we are to look upon it as 
a whole loaf, and every one is to take the whole loaf. 
It is like a chain; we are to begin at the first verse, 
and every link is to be twined around the heart of the 
believer. We are to have the whole in our experience, 
not divided off. The beatitudes are so arranged that 
they follow each other as the day follows the daybreak. 
You cannot transpose them. They are arranged in the 
order in which the Holy Ghost brings them out in our 
experience. 

This sermon on the mount was addressed to believers 
only. In the beatitudes Jesus gives us, in a complete 
form, a statement of the true Christian life. First, 
poverty of spirit is the corner stone of all deep piety ; 
as in conversion a sense of guilt is the beginning of 
repentance, so in heart purity a consciousness of inward 
depravity is the starting point to full salvation. You 
can't get sinners to repent until you show them their 
sins, neither can you get believers to seek for cleansing 
until you show them their inward corruption ; and this 
consciousness of inward depravity is what stirs us up to 
seek a clean heart. It is not only so in religion. Con- 
scious mental poverty starts us out on the track of 
learning. 

People who think themselves great and who do not 



THE BEATITUDES. 241 

seek knowledge are never anything more than con- 
ceited dunces all their lives. They haven't even sense 
enough to know that they don't know anything. A 
consciousness of our ignorance is the' starting point to 
wealth and learning. The same is true in material 
things. As a rule, the ones who strive for riches and 
those who acquire wealth are those who started with a 
biting sense of poverty. Yet, though few get wealthy, 
all they get is from a previous sense of poverty. It is 
a sense of want that drives us to seek supply. The 
Lord shows us the poverty in our prayers, — oh, what 
prayers ! — the spiritual poverty in our sermons, in our 
songs, and in our hearts, and reveals the great lack in 
our hearts ; and when we see how poor our religion is 
in comparison with the glorious things in the Bible 
presented as our privilege, we say that we can't stand 
it, we must have more or give up what we have. 
What do we do when we become conscious of our 
spiritual poverty ? 

The very next step is, we begin to " mourn." Spiritual 
poverty makes us mourn, lament our depravity. To 
see our hearts in the light of God's Spirit, all the little 
mean things that lie all through our natures, — this 
causes us to grieve. We get down and begin to tell 
the Lord about it, and we tell our friends about it, but 
no one feels it like we feel it. Though they see them, 
they are not so conscious of our depravity, our mean- 



242 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

ness, our defects, as we are. They can't feel the 
anguish half that we do caused by our ugly tempers 
and words. They hurt others, but they hurt us so 
much more. Mr. Wesley says : " There are two kinds 
of repentance : one, the sinner's over his sins ; the 
other, the believer's over the depravity of his heart. 
This causes us to grieve. Isaiah and Job had this 
repentance." But " blessed are they that mourn." 
They make us grieve now, but Jesus leans over us 
and says, " Never mind ; you may be grieving now, 
but blessed are ye, ' for they shall be comforted.' " 

The next step is meekness. Mourning will inevi- 
tably produce humility, as fire produces heat. Meek- 
ness is a sense of conviction that we are very little, 
very unworthy. Before we get on to this phase of 
experience we think we are " somebody," esteem our- 
selves to be good, fair, respectable Christians. We 
are willing to admit we are humble, but there is 
a good deal of self-esteem even in that. But when 
God shows us our poverty, the sight will whittle us 
down so small that we can hardly find ourselves. We 
simply dwindle into nothing. 

When God humbles us, we get so lowly we think 
ourselves smaller than everything else, and so we are. 
We lose our self-conceit and dignity, and regard our 
un worthiness and unprofitableness. All that is the out- 
growth of mourning, which is the outgrowth of that 



THE BEATITUDES. 243 

consciousness of spiritual poverty. It is a cross for a 
person who is thoroughly meek to be pushed into 
public notice. He desires to hide, to sink out of sight. 
When we get there we are getting towards the tropics 
of divine grace, toward full salvation. 

The next step is, i; hunger and thirst after righteous- 
ness." This comes as a direct result of your absolute 
nothingness in your own eyes. There springs up an in- 
tense longing to be like Jesus. Before you get there 
you desire to get " better." Most all are willing to go 
forward to the altar to seek to be "better," but they 
don't come down to real business until they take these 
first steps. In these advancing steps there is a place 
you reach from which you cannot retreat. When a fish 
is about to bite, he can get away, but if he goes beyond 
a certain point in reaching for the bait, in goes the hook 
and it is too late for him to retreat. The more he tries 
to get away, the deeper goes the hook. Every effort to 
retreat only increases the hopelessness of his position. 
So in full salvation some will say, "I want to be better, 
a great deal better." They may rise for prayers, or 
even go to the altar, and then back out; but when 
you get to perfect self-abasement, out of which comes 
an intense hungering and thirsting after righteousness, 
then you can't back out. Then it is either holiness or 
hell. 

The Holy Ghost draws believers to a point where 



244 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

they see clearly that they must be holy or go to hell. 
When God draws your soul there, it is glorious, 
because the Holy Ghost will create a hunger and thirst 
that will carry you through. Hunger is a tremendous 
appetite, thirst a much stronger one. Very few people 
have been hungry or thirsty. Jesus takes these two 
powerful appetites and combines them, and the figure 
is that the soul craves God and to be like Him more 
than we crave meat or drink or the body craves 
raiment. 

The soul cannot sleep hardly, so great is its longing 
to be like Jesus. My very soul used to break in its 
longings to be like Jesus. I hated myself, I despised 
my talents, I scorned my place in the Church. And 
this intense longing comes from getting in the valley 
of humiliation, where you can see Jesus. A man in the 
bottom of a well can see stars in the daytime. In the 
valley of humiliation you get a view of Jesus you never 
can get anywhere else. When you get sunken down 
so low you lose sight of other people and things in the 
world, you look up and see Jesus, and beauties you 
never saw before. The proud man lives on the moun- 
tain top. He takes in the grand view of the surround- 
ing country, and this prevents him from seeing stars. 
It is the one away down in the deep gorge that sees 
them in the daytime. From the gilded peaks of 
worldliness you can get no view of Jesus. 



THE BEATITUDES. 245 

The next one is, " Blessed are the merciful : for they 
shall obtain mercy." " Merciful " is where your heart 
melts, and you lose your hardness and uncouthness; 
you are getting where the claws fall from your hands 
and feet, and you feel like being kind and tender to 
everybody. This thirst for God produces mercifulness. 
Now you are very close to the blessing. The Holy 
Ghost has been leading you up the steps of this golden 
stairway. Now you say, " I used to criticise holiness," 
or, " I used to find fault with that brother or sister " ; but 
filled with mercy, you lose sight of everybody's defects. 
That is where the Church wants to get. The sermon is 
criticised, and the people are criticised ; we are always 
on our guard ; and so, watching for the provocations of 
life, we are so easily offended and our sense of propriety 
is so easily shocked that the great " I " has to be han- 
dled so carefully we are more like little glass bottles 
than immortal spirits. Everything jars on our nerves. 
But when God fills us with mercy, so great is our thirst 
for God we have no time to search for defects in other 
people. Merciful to the poor, t© the wicked, to the 
person who does not see things just in the light that you 
do ; a spirit that says, " All others do better than I, 
and if they had the advantages that I have, would be a 
great deal better." Ah ! now the winter blast is leaving 
your mind, and the summer sun is melting your heart, 
your whole being. Oh, it is grand to see a heart go 
"all to pieces before God " ! 



246 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

The next step is, " Blessed are the pure." "When 
you get all broken down, it only takes one step of faith 
to get the blessing of full salvation. When you are all 
broken up and melted before God, then God's heart is 
full of compassion toward you, and you will see God ; 
your heart is pure. The next is "peacemakers," or 
"peacebearers." Now when you get a pure heart, the 
next thing is to bear it around, let others know it and 
feel the benefit of it. You commence b} r being poor in 
spirit. Now to bear it around means to be a witness to 
it. Your heart is now cleansed, you have inward 
peace ; now take it like a goblet (as was the custom in 
Eastern countries of serving the guests with water) 
and bear it to all the guests in the Lord's family. We 
are to communicate this. No one but yourself knows 
about it, for sanctification doesn't make such a change 
in the outward life ; so you must tell it. 

" Blessed are ye when men shall persecute you, etc." 
Do you notice that it is only when you are a witness 
to full salvation that you begin to be "persecuted"? 
They won't persecute you for being poor in spirit; 
they do not care how much you mourn ; and they will 
not vex you even if you hunger and thirst after right- 
eousness , but the minute you begin to testify to it, 
there is where the lightning strikes. Search the Bible 
and you will find, all through, instances corroborative of 
this fact. Jesus was crucified, not because He was 



THE BEATITUDES. 247 

holy, but because He testified that He was the Son of 
God. Persecution has always come on the point of 
testimony, and only on that point, for this is what 
hurts Satan's kingdom most and what glorifies God 
most. 

If you are a witness to heart purity, as you must 
be, there will come just enough persecution to be a 
blessing, just enough to season your daily bread. And 
do you notice that the first and last verses have 
precisely the same rewards ? When you take a chain 
and unite it, the first and last links touch each other. 
It is blessed all the way. When you feel miserable 
and "poor in spirit"; when you shed bitter tears; 
when you come and consecrate your little insignificant 
all humbly to God; when you "hunger and thirst 
after righteousness " ; when you become softened 
and filled with mercy ; when you are conscious of 
inward purity, and when you tell it around to 
others ; and even when you are persecuted for the 
"sake of right-doing," — every step in religion is 
blessed. From the time that you turn your back on 
the devil and on your sins, till you land yourself at the 
throne of God, every step along the ascending golden 
stair is blessed. You may not see where it is lead- 
ing to, but God stoops over from above, and at every 
step says, " Blessed, blessed." Brethren and sisters, 
don't you want the whole loaf, the fullness of the 
beatitudes ? 



CHAPTER XVI. 

BIBLE BEADING ON THE FIVE "MUCH MORES." 

" Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God 
through our Lord Jesus Christ: 

"By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein 
we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. 

"And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also: knowing 
that tribulation worketh patience; 

"And patience, experience; and experience, hope: 

"And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is 
shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto 
us. 

"For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ 
died for the ungodly. 

"For scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet peradventure 
for a good man some would even dare to die. 

" But God commandeth his love toward us, in that, while we 
were yet sinners, Christ died for us. 

" Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be 
saved from wrath through him. 

"For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by 
the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be 
saved by his life. 

"And not only so, but we also joy in God through our Lord 
Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement. 

"Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and 
death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have 
sinned : 

"(For until the law sin was in the world: but sin is not imputed 
when there is no law. 

"Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over 



THE FIVE "MUCH MORES" 249 

them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's trans- 
gression, who is the figure of him that was to come. 

" But not as the ottence, so also is the free gift. J^'or if through 
the offence of one many be dead, much more the grace of God, 
and the gift by grace, which is by one man, Jesus Christ, hath 
abounded unto many. 

"And not as it was by one that sinned, so is the gift: for the 
judgment was by one to condemnation, but the free gift is of many 
offences unto justification. 

" For if by one man's offence death reigned by one; much more 
they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteous- 
ness shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ. ) 

"Therefore as by the offence of one judgment came upon all 
men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one the 
free gift came upon all men unto justification of life. 

" For .as by one mail's disobedience many were made sinners, 
so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous. 

"Moreover the law entered, that the offence might abound. 
But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound: 

" That as sin hath.reigned unto death, even so might grace reign 
through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our 
Lord."— Rom. 5. 



THIS chapter begins on justification by faith, yet, as 
we pass on down the chapter, we find a regular 
ascending or descending stair in the deep things of God. 
The climax is reached in the last verse. The first verse 
sets forth justification. 

There is a second verse to this chapter. A great 
many persons do not seem to know there is a second 
verse, which presents a higher phase of experience than 
the first. " By whom aUoT The word " also " means, 
"in addition to what has gone before." Here it means 
in addition to justification. The word " access " means 



250 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

an entrance way. We are not only " justified by faith," 
but by faith we have access — a doorway — into this 
establishment. The " grace wherein we stand " is the 
rooting and abounding grace. So we are justified by 
faith ; but lest somebody think we are sanctified by 
development, the apostle says, u by faith " also "we 
have access " into steadiness and firmness. 

Then he goes on to present to us, from the ninth 
verse down, what he means by the grace of establish- 
ment, the different phases of saving faith. The words 
"much more" are Paul's mode of arguing. It is 
arguing from a stronger to a weaker point. The 
argument here is : If a man can raise a hundred pounds, 
how much more can he lift twenty pounds. 

This is Paul's favorite mode of arguing. This chap- 
ter is a masterly pile of arguments on this line. The 
first "much more" is on justification; second, on re- 
generation; third, on removal of original depravity; 
fourth, on the baptism of the Holy Ghost ; fifth, on the 
abounding of divine grace over and above all the 
elements of sin. The words "much more" occur five 
times in this chapter. Now the first two "much 
mores "refer to the negative and positive side of con- 
version, in the ninth and tenth verses ; the second two 
" much mores " to the negative and positive side of 
entire sanctification (vs. 15, 17) , and the fifth (v. 20) 
to the superabounding of divine grace over sin. 



THE FIVE "MUCH MORES" 251 

Look at verses nine and ten. " Much more then, 
being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from 
wrath." The first and negative part of conversion is 
pardon, saving from wrath. " For if, when we were 
enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his 
Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by 
his life." 

In the ninth verse, " saved from wrath " ; in the 
tenth, "saved by his life." Thus there are two parts to 
conversion, and in these verses we find the negative and 
positive side of conversion. 

The first thing that God does for us is to remove our 
guilt and the divine wrath, and save us from going to 
perdition. Justification saves us from the curse of the 
law, removes the penalty, but justification by itself 
does not change the heart. If God were to only justify 
and not regenerate the heart, we would immediately 
drift back into sin, as the prisoner who may be liberated 
from the law. There is no power there to change his 
heart. Justification must come first, the removal of all 
guilt, thereby removing the legal barrier and clearing 
the way for God to change the heart. Now if Jesus 
suffered and died for us, how much more shall we be 
saved from wrath through Him ! 

The next " much more" refers to our positive renewal 
of life. To be saved by the life of Jesus is regenera- 
tion. It was not only that we are pardoned and saved 



252 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

from wrath, but we are saved by having His life im- 
parted in us. The word " regeneration " means, to 
"begin to live over again "; so that in regeneration God 
restores the lost life to us — the life and love of God. 
The love of God is His life ; and when the Holy Ghost 
sheds abroad the love of God in the heart, He sheds His 
life. This is regeneration ; saved, not only from going 
to hell, but from the power of sin, "by his life." 

Here is the mode of argument : If Christ died, how 
much more will he remove my guilt and save me from 
wrath? and if when I was in open rebellion against 
Him He will save me, how much more will He impart 
His life as soon as I am justified? There is the argu- 
ment. We find here a tremendous argument in favor 
of God pardoning our sins and changing our hearts, and 
if He will do this for us, how much more will He do a 
lesser work for us ? The death of Christ is a great deal 
larger than conversion ; and if He has done the greater 
thing, how much more will he do the lesser? God 
always begins at the big end. If He will do the infinite 
thing, how much more will He do what is less ? 

The fifteenth verse refers to entire sanctification. If 
by one man depravity abounded, much more by one 
man, Jesus, does grace abound to reverse the death 
principle inherited from Adam. 

Verse seventeen says that " if by one man's offense 
death reigned, . . . much more they which receive 
abundance of grace . . . shall reigii in life." 



. THE FIVE "MUCH MORES." 253 

In these two verses, these two " much mores," there 
are points brought out not even hinted at in the first 
two. The first part of sanctification is the cleansing of 
the soul from hereditary depravity, and then comes the 
filling. The negative side of it is the cleansing, and 
the positive side the filling. 

In verse fifteen the apostle touches on the law of 
heredity. The law of heredity was not mentioned in 
the first, nothing but your own sins ; but he now comes 
down to the basement story of man's nature. How 
much more shall believers, through Jesus, inherit grace 
to remove depravity! He presents here one of the 
strongest arguments in favor of human depravity. One 
of the greatest barriers in the way of getting some 
people to seek for heart purity is, that human depravity 
is such a tremendous thing that it cannot be destroyed 
until they die. The apostle offers a sledge-hammer 
argument against that doctrine. If Adam had the 
power to transmit depravity, how much more shall the 
grace of Jesus Christ, the second Adam, abound " unto 
many." Jesus is our second Adam. We have inherited 
our depraved nature and its weaknesses from Adam, 
but so soon as we believe in Jesus we become in spirit 
members of a new race. Those who belong to Jesus are 
as much a distinct race of beings in spiritual things as 
those born of Adam are distinct from angels. You are 
physically the same, but spiritually you belong to the 



254 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

Christian race, so that when " born again " of the Holy 
Ghost yon belong to the new Adam, which is Jesus 
Christ. 

Now the first Adam was finite ; the second is infinite. 
If the first Adam had power to make you depraved, 
shall not the second have power to make you clean? 
Has not Jesus as much power as Adam ? If we inherited 
sin from the first Adam, how much more power in the 
second, now, to take the curse, the inbred sin, out of us ? 
It is almost blasphemy to say that Jesus Christ has not 
as much power as Adam. If Adam had the power to 
deform us, has not Jesus Christ power to transform us 
into His own image ? 

But the removal of this inbred sin is only the nega- 
tive part of sanctification, the emptying us of all the 
image of the old Adam. But not only does the apostle 
argue that God will cleanse us from all hereditary sin, 
but in verse seventeen he argues the positive side of 
sanctification. The word " reign " is another added 
word in this list. 

Paul begins this grand picture of salvation at the very 
gates of hell, saving from wrath, and adds new colors 
and puts on the light. First, we are saved from wrath ; 
second, salvation by His life — that is a new word ; 
the third touches on inherited sin ; and in the fourth 
he introduces still another word ; u For if by one man's 
offense death reigned, . . . much more they which 



THE FIVE "MUCH MORES." 255 

receive abundance of grace . . . shall reign, etc." 
Every verse becomes richer and richer. This fourth 
" much more " speaks of the victory of the reigning 
power. The third says, If Adam had power to bring in 
depravity, how much more shall Jesus Christ be able to 
purge you of it? Now he says, If Christ had power to' 
remove human depravity, how much more shall He be 
able to fill you ? 

The abundance of grace means the flood of grace — 
grace at high tide. Jesus says, " I am come that they 
might have life, and that they might have it more abun- 
dantly." The abundance is the Pentecostal bestow- 
ment. The same argument is used here, — first, grace, 
then the abundance of grace. That is what Christians 
everywhere need, — not only grace to keep from God's 
penitentiary, but the abundance of grace, so that the 
soul triumphs in the love of God. 

The law was not given until the days of Moses. Paul 
says that the law was given "that the offense might 
abound" (v. 20). The law was given in advance 
that the disease of sin might be developed. You can't 
cure a disease so long as it is latent. You might offer 
a man salvation and he would not receive it ; he does 
not think he needs it. The law is itself essential to every 
one's salvation. The law cannot save, but it shows a 
man what he is. If you want to clean a house, you can- 
not begin until you turn on the light, to show where the 



256 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

dust and dirt is. The light does not clean the house, 
but it shows where to clean. You never can get one 
soul to come to Jesus until you show them hell fire ; and 
when you show them, by the law, what sin is, then they 
will accept salvation. So it is with believers. You 
can't get believers to surrender themselves for cleansing 
until you show them by the law the internal, inbred 
depravity. When the law develops our latent deprav- 
ity, then we want the cleansing blood. The Lord puts 
in the law as a plow. After the soul is plowed up, 
you can bring in full salvation. This law is the blister 
to bring out the disease. God's law brings out our dis- 
ease ; and then grace comes, and where " sin abounded, 
grace " doth " much more abound." God's grace is 
bigger than the disease, than human depravity. 

It is impossible for the law to develop a state of soul 
that God's grace cannot cleanse and save. The blue 
sky always goes beyond the green earth. It looks as 
though it rested on the earth, but if you go anywhere 
on or around this earth you will find the sky ever above 
and beyond. So you take a human heart in any aspect 
and you will find the grace of God as far beyond the sin 
as the sky is beyond the earth. It is absolutely impos- 
sible to find a human soul that God cannot save and 
make clean. A sinner too big for God to save ! I know 
there are a great many persons who go on about the 
"unpardonable sin," that is, to call the Holy Ghost a 



THE FIVE "MUCH MORES." 257 

devil. Not many commit that sin. But in all little 
sins, — gilt-edged depravity, refined depravity, — where 
sin has darkened and polluted the soul, there " grace " 
doth " much more abound." 

These five " much mores " are like a temple, the first 
two corners being the negative and positive of justifica- 
tion and regeneration , the other two corners are the 
negative and positive of the removal of hereditary sin, 
and entire sanctification ; and then with the fifth " much 
more" God makes and spreads a great roof, and says, 
now " where sin abounded, grace " doth " much more 
abound." None need be discouraged. The weaker, 
the more helpless and unworthy you are, the nearer you 
are to full salvation. This grace can abound in your 
own heart. Beginning with justification by faith, you 
can take this whole chapter as your legacy. Are you 
willing to take it " by simple faith " ? That is the only 
way you get it. You belong to Him by conversion. 
Let Him fully save you now, and learn that where thy 
depravity abounds, grace shall " much more abound." 



CHAPTER XVII. 

THE WHITE ROBED COMPANY. 

"After this I beheld, and, lo, a great multitude, which no man 
could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and 
tongues, stood before the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed 
with white robes, and palms in their hands." — Rev. 7: 9. 

THESE words present to us a pictur3 of the 
redeemed in heaven, but they also reveal to us 
just as clearly the characteristics of the redeemed on 
earth. The great peculiarity of this Book of Revela- 
tion is, that it presents all the doctrines of the Bible in 
pictorial forms ; not abstract truth, but concrete truth 
embodied in living form and color. This is the most 
impressive form in which truth can be stated. A bare 
definition of electricity would not half impress the 
mind as a description of the same element manifested 
in a thunderstorm. An abstract statement of the 
principles of anger or love would be stale and weak 
compared to a vivid portrayal of these principles 
unfolding themselves in actual life. And that which 
imparts such an overwhelming charm to this Book of 
Revelation is this trait of having all the elements 
of the moral universe thrown into their respective 

258 



THE WHITE ROBED COMPANY. 259 

activities. Here we see all the truths of the Scripture 
disclosing themselves in their highest degree of mani- 
festation. Here every principle of hate and love, of 
sin and holiness, of sorrow and gladness, of punish- 
ments and rewards, of man's fall and rise, of probation 
and eternity, is set forth in the warm colors of living 
action. Here we see the blossoming forth into history 
of all the seed, both of good and ill, that has been sown 
in the fields of time. 

The three great elements of the sours salvation are 
presented in this text. The attitude of standing 
" before the throne " implies loyalty to the sovereign 
will, and in a much stronger manner than the mere 
statement of obedience. The garniture of " white 
robes " implies purity of nature, and more impressively 
than is conveyed by the abstract term "purity." 
Bearing " palms in their hands" represents victory 
to the Oriental mind, much stronger than a bare 
statement of conquest. Let us notice these three 
elements of loyalty, purity, and victory, as set forth 
under the imagery of the text. 

1. Notice the attitude of this company : they " stood 
before the throne, and before the Lamb." The term 
" throne " indicates everything that we mean by 
authority, dominion, government. It is the concrete 
form of the divine will ; that is, the divine will as it is 
expressed in government. We read of a " great white 



260 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

throne," which is but a pictorial statement of the pure 
will of God in the actual government of His creatures. 
If we think of God's will as latent or reposing in 
Himself, it is not then properly a throne ; but God's 
will as related to all creatures is emphatically the 
throne of the universe. The position of standing 
indicates everything in loyalty, submission, and har- 
mony with that enthroned will. Perfect submission 
to God's will is the essential meaning of standing 
"before the throne." The imagery here is from the 
custom of Oriental monarchs, who had armed soldiers 
to stand before them on state occasions, a bodyguard 
of honor ready at any instant to obey the will of 
the monarch. It is said that "order is heaven's first 
law "; if that be so, then obedience to order is heaven's 
first virtue. If we trace God's kingdom in every 
branch of it we will find this text illustrated. 

In the realm of matter we read that darkness and 
confusion was upon the face of the world till the 
particles of matter were reduced to law. The " Spirit, 
moving upon the face of the deep," simply mustered 
the inorganic atoms to the method of God's plans ; 
in other words, made them stand "before the throne," 
in order that beauty and utility might be reached. 
Adam was introduced upon the earth at that time in 
creation most fitted to impress him with the thought 
of order and obedience. As far as his senses could 



THE WHITE ROBED COMPANY. 261 

extend, he gathered the lesson of harmony; not a hint 
of rebellion could be detected ; all things, with himself 
included, were virtually standing " before the throne." 
When God organized the Hebrews into a visible 
Church, He gathered them before His throne at Sinai 
and gave them the covenant of the law, and this 
covenant of loyalty was the basis of their national and 
religious history ; and when Jesus brought in the new 
covenant of the gospel, He sent John the Baptist to 
preach repentance, the perfect submission of the will, 
as the prerequisite of the gospel, dispensation. Thus 
we see, at the beginning of every form of God's king- 
dom, submission to law, or standing " before the 
throne," is the first great essential. This principle of 
loyalty is fundamental. Any derangement at this point 
would unhinge our happiness through eternity. In hell 
every one has a will of his own, which makes it literally 
a pandemonium; will clashes with will, and purpose 
wars with purpose. In heaven there is one will alone 
in government, the untarnished great white throne, 
and the happiness of every creature's will there is its 
glad agreement, and hearty yielding to that one infinite 
will. We must not forget that this standing " before 
the throne" is coupled with standing "before the 
Lamb," denoting that the principle of submission and 
obedience is evangelical. It is not the submission of 
brute matter to law, nor of rebellious spirits to enforced 



262 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

authority, but a gracious yielding of the will in obedi- 
ence through Jesus Christ ; a loyalty made possible on 
man's part only through the slain Lamb. The princi- 
ple of loyalty as expressed in repentance must precede 
pardon, and as expressed in entire consecration must 
precede heart purity ; thus, through the grace of the 
atoning Lamb, who is in the midst of the throne, we are 
graciously assisted to adjust ourselves to God's will. 
And whether we be in this world or any other world, 
whether living or dying, whether on sea or land, in 
labor or rest , whenever our wills get in the attitude 
of perfect submission and obedience, we are at that 
moment virtually standing " before the throne," and in 
a condition to receive all the sovereign and gracious 
blessings which proceed from the throne and from the 
Lamb. 

2. They were " clothed with white robes." This 
expression indicates the purity of their nature, their 
purification from both actual and original sin, and so 
fitting them for the society of heaven. The term 
"white robes" expresses the idea of holiness in a 
much stronger manner than we might at first sup- 
pose. 

Scriptural holiness has two parts to it: the negative, 
which is the absence of sin, and the positive, the full 
activity of holy love. Both of these thoughts are 
couched in the phrase "white robe." The word 



THE WHITE ROBED COMPANY. 263 

" white " expresses the simple idea of purity, the unmix- 
edness -of moral principle. The word " robe " does not 
of itself imply either good or evil, but indicates the 
activity of the soul's powers. Let us notice this 
compound expression in detail. The word " robe," or 
" garment " or " clothing," as used in Scripture in 
reference to the soul, expresses positive moral 
character, either good or bad. We read of " filthy 
garments," "white raiment," being "clothed with 
humility," etc., indicating that the activity of the moral 
faculties, the daily carriage and behavior of the soul, 
produces a moral character, which is a garment to the 
soul, like the feathers to a bird, the hair to an animal, 
the scales to a fish, or the foliage to a tree ; a covering 
unique, individual, grown from the forces of its own 
inner life. The term " habit " will illustrate the use of 
the word "robe." 

"Habit" is from the same root word from whence 
we get habitation, inhabit, habiliment, etc. ; it originally 
meant clothing. We speak of a riding, walking, or 
court habit ; that is dress. But words advance in their 
meaning from the outer to the inner life, from the 
physical to the spiritual; and the word "habit" now 
signifies, not so much the clothing of the body as the 
garniture of the soul. The conscience, the affections, 
the will, the thoughts, are the looms in the soul, and, 
by their incessant activity, are weaving out a subtle 



264 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

fabric of moral qualities which clothes the soul with a 
conduct appropriate to itself. We are told that the 
wicked shall be " driven away in his wickedness " ; that 
is, his own wickedness will constitute the rough sack- 
cloth garment of his soul forever : and that the saved 
are clothed in " white linen, which 'is the righteousness 
of the saints " ; that is, their holy activities of prayer, 
of words, of good deeds, the loyal movements of their 
will and the loving movements of their hearts, will 
forever environ them, and be the fit expression of their 
inner being. 

The word " white " implies that the native color of sin 
has been washed out from the robe of the soul, and that 
the same soul forces, the same organs or inner looms of 
the soul, which once wove a filthy garment, are now so 
purified that the clothing is clean instead of polluted. 
The robe is human; the whiteness is supernatural, the 
result of a divine washing. Here is a clear distinction 
between the human and the divine in religion. The 
silkworm weaves its own cocoon from the substance 
of its inner life ; but it has no power to bleach it, or to 
so change its inner organs that it would produce a 
different color. The bleaching must come from some 
outer and higher source. And so with us, our souls 
will inevitably weave out a mantle according to our 
inner nature; but the washing of that mantle, the 
purifying of the activities of the spirit, must come 
from beyond and above us. 



THE WHITE ROBED COMPANY* 265 

In the Scriptures this distinction is ever recognized ; 
the robe is always denominated our own, the whiteness 
is always attributed to the washing in the blood of the 
Lamb. " These are they . . . which washed their 
robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb." 
Notice, the robe is theirs, the whiteness is imparted. 
The remembering of this distinction would show us the 
gross error of imputed holiness. The notion of imputed 
salvation is spreading enormously even in the Meth- 
odist churches of America. Ministers and evangelists 
who are full of antinomianism are sought for, wel- 
comed to prominent churches and camp meetings, are 
put at the head of Bible conventions, and heralded as 
great exegetes. Their doctrines just suit the carnal 
mind, for they insist that the carnal mind can never 
be separated from the soul till death. They make a 
specialty of correctly quoting the letter of Scripture, 
but grossly pervert and deny the true spiritual meaning 
of Scripture ; they prate nonsensically of being full of 
sin within, but having no sin on you ; they harp on 
the difference between your standing with God and 
your state cf heart; they talk of being clothed with 
Christ's white robe of righteousness. If we are clothed 
in Christ's robe, was His robe ever filthy? Did His 
robe need washing in His own blood ? 

There is not one verse of Scripture to prove such an 
idea. So far as mere legal justification is concerned, 



266 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

it is true we are accounted innocent for Christ's sake in 
the same sense that He was accounted guilty for our 
sakes ; but regeneration is a positive imparting of divine 
life to the soul, and not an imputation, and sanctifi- 
cation is a positive purging out from the soul the carnal 
mind, and not in any sense an imputed whiteness, but 
a real imparted cleanness. The deluded soul that does 
not get its own heart robes washed, but expects to get 
to heaven by merely being enveloped in the imputed 
robes of Christ's personal holiness, will find in the end 
that Christ's robe will be taken to heaven where it 
belongs, and the depraved heart will sink into hell 
where it belongs. Our robes are our own, and will be 
our own in this world and in the world to come, and we 
are by faith to wash them in the blood of the Lamb. 
Our robes maj^ be woven gradually, but they are 
washed instantaneously. Our robe belongs to the 
realm of works, but the whiteness is received in the 
realm of faith. Our robes are of different sizes, accord- 
ing to the length and activity of our lives, but the 
whiteness of the purified robes is equal ; the sanctified 
infant and the sanctified apostle will be equally clean 
in heaven, but not equally clothed with good works 
and rewards. The recollecting of the difference 
between the robe and its whiteness would prevent 
a good deal of theological blundering between the 
gradual and the instantaneous, the realm of works and 



THE WHITE ROBED COMPANY. 267 

the realm of faith, between a fitness for heaven and 
rewards in heaven. All who have washed their robes 
by faith in Jesus have a "right to the tree of life, and 
may enter in through the gates into the city." 

3. With "palms in their hands." This is an expres- 
sion of Oriental imagery, indicative of victory, triumph. 
It implies that a battle had been fought and the victory 
gained. 

Perhaps no form of vegetable' or animal life repre- 
sented to the Eastern mind the thought of victory more 
perfectly than the palm tree, growing sometimes one 
hundred feet high, living in the desert, and waving its 
leaves of perennial green for a hundred years. Over- 
coming desert droughts, scorching simoons, summer 
suns, and the flight of years, it has ever been in Eastern 
countries the emblem of conquest. When the follow- 
ers of Jesus shouted His triumphant entrance into 
Jerusalem, they spread palm branches in the way, 
supposing He was about to ascend victoriously the 
temporal throne of David. When the Romans con- 
quered Judea, they stamped the image of the palm on 
their next coinage of money, to indicate their triumph. 
The Christian life is evidently a warfare, and yet with 
singular accuracy the Scriptures designate the soldier 
life of a Christian as dating from his full salvation, his 
being armed with the " panoply of God." The Jews 
had some skirmishings in the wilderness, but their war- 



268 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

fare, properly speaking, dated from their entrance into 
Canaan, the type of the believer's entrance into perfect 
love. The apostles began their true warfare and the 
enduring of hardness as soldiers after Pentecost, 
although previous to that time they were "registered in 
heaven," "the little flock," "not of the world," and 
"babes in Christ." Previous to sanctification the 
Christian wages a domestic war with the foes in his own 
nature, and has but little time or strength for fighting 
the battles of the Lord. The Lord tells us through 
Isaiah that He hath commanded His sanctified ones. 
When God has some Waterloo to be fought, some 
forlorn hope to carry, some awful breach to fill, 
some soul-humbling and severe task to be performed, 
He does not look to Christian babes nor to easy-going 
ministers nor to stiff ecclesiastics nor to dainty 
church devotees nor to partially sanctified though 
earnest believers, but His all-piercing eye scans the 
fields of Christendom, and His voice calls for the " old 
guard," those who are dead to sin and self. We learn 
from the order of this text that perfect submission, or 
standing " before the throne," is preliminary to heart 
purity, or the white robe ; and that purification, or the 
washing of the robe, is preliminary to conflict and 
victory. 

Every true saint will be led by the Holy Ghost 
through experiences of severe testing and trial. Satan 



THE WHITE ROBED COMPANY. 269 

will attack the sanctified in a stronger and bolder 
manner than ever before. He will use every device 
to poison the sweetness of perfect love, and turn it into 
acid or gall. He will attack the faith, either to break 
it down with discouragement or make it leap off into 
presumption or side track it on some fanatical fact ; 
he will assail the hope to make it droop in despondency, 
or else inflate it with all sorts of imaginary fulfillments 
of prophecies and visions. Every grace will meet its 
test to prepare it for its eternal state. The heroic 
saint will be charged with riding a hobby of holiness; 
but long ago St. John described a heavenly cavalry 
riding on white horses, going out with King Jesus 
to fight His battles. Every intelligent earnest person 
rides a hobby of some kind , the great question is, 
What is the color of your horse? 

The palm tree can endure more ill usage than any 
other form of plant life. It has no outer bark like 
other trees, and cannot be killed by any amount of 
girdling ; its sap flows up through its heart. In like 
manner the purified Christian can endure ill treatment, 
hard usage, and, like Job, though all the outward bark 
of life may be peeled away, there flows from hidden 
sources, through the interior heart, a mysterious current 
of sap which keeps it ever green, though to all human 
eyes there seems nothing but desolation and decay. 
The heroism of the saint is at an infinite distance from 



270 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

the heroism of the world. His warfare, like the other 
phases of his life, is a perfect paradox to human 
reason. 

We live by dying ; the deeper our death the higher 
our life. We are filled with wisdom by being fools 
in our own eyes ; we conquer by being first perfectly 
conquered ; we meet the roar of the lion with the 
uncomplaining quietness of the lamb ; roughness is 
overcome by gentleness; and long continued patience 
wears down the raging of the tiger. What an armor of 
invisible strength is requisite to fight the King's 
battles to the end ! The heroes of salvation have left 
us examples worthy of imitation. When Inskip was 
dying at Ocean Grove, he seized a palm leaf fan lying 
on the bed, and waving it, whispered, " Triumph, 
triumph." The three thoughts in the text present 
three pictures to the eye of the mind: perfect order, 
perfect beauty, and perfect strength. Heaven is a 
scene of order : they all stood before the throne, rank 
beyond rank and circle above circle, not one out of his 
place ; no broken link, no unsightly gap, no confusion 
of place or posture. What a scene of harmony, of 
concord, with one infinite will ! Heaven is a scene of 
beauty: as far as the eye can reach every form is 
clad in white raiment. Heaven is a scene of strength : 
u not one feeble one in all their tribes " ; no coward, no 
traitor, no one who has not passed through some 



THE WHITE ROBED COMPANY. 271 

requisite test ; each according to his sphere, according 
to his constitution, according to his generation, has 
fought and triumphed. 

All of these principles are now at work among men ; 
and by cooperation with the Holy Spirit and a 
thorough acceptance of these truths, we may to-day be 
most positively identified with, and form a part of, the 
very company of those who stand before the throne of 
God and the Lamb, and wear white robes and have 
palms in their hands. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

THE PROMISES OF GOD. 

" For all the promises of God in him are yea, and in him Amen, 
unto the glory of God by us." — 2 Cor. 1:^20. 

THE words "in him" refer to Christ; all God's 
promises are in Christ ; and in Christ they are all 
" yea " and in Christ they are all "Amen," for in Christ 
God gets the glory of them, and in Christ He gets the 
glory by us. We live on promises. To say that we 
can't accept promises, that we can't trust in a bare 
promise, can't depend on it, can't transact business 
on it, is to go in the face of universal experience. A 
promise implies the coming of some good to us, thafc we 
are not just in possession of. A promise does not refer 
to anything evil coming to us ; that is a threat. It is a 
statement we take for the time being of what we are 
hoping for, — something good we are hoping for. It is 
the basis upon which rests all governmental, business, 
and domestic life, and all the affairs of this life are 
carried on on nothing but promises. Marriage and cur- 
rency are promises ; treaties of peace between nations ; 
a check is a promise ; and all the business and affairs of 



THE PROMISES OF GOD. 273 

this world are carried on by promise. The world lived 
four thousand years on the promised Messiah, so that 
from the Fall until the day Jesus was born was a great 
arc of promise, and on that arc the world hung. The 
promises extend from the beginning until the present, 
and from the present to the future ; and when the Lord 
calls on us to get saved on a promise, we simply do what 
we do on every other thing on business principles. 

God's promise is a projection from Himself, that we 
may take hold of ; we can't take hold of the abstract 
Deity." An infant can take hold of the moon as easily as 
a man's mind can grasp the infinite God. Now, how 
can souls be brought in contact with the divine nature ? 
Why, God lets down these promises, and by believing 
on them we are brought up into fellowship with the 
divine nature. A promise is like a rope thrown to a 
man overboard, by which he can be drawn up to the 
vessel ; so by promises we are brought up, by the 
Divine Spirit, into fellowship with the divine nature. 

God unbosoms Himself to us in His promises. We 
only live a minute at a time, but God lives in eternity, 
the eternal past and future. " He inhabiteth eternity." 
Now, inasmuch as you live only a minute at a time, God 
says, I will give you a promise that extends into to-mor- 
row, so that by taking hold of God's promise you get the 
substance of what will come to-morrow. When I believe 
God's Word I get the benefit of what took place two 



274 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

thousand years ago, and will get the benefit of what is to 
come ; and I virtually spread myself over the whole dura- 
tion of ages by simply believing God's promises. There 
are, it is said, over thirty-two thousand promises in God's 
Book, and they touch every phase of human experience. 
Promises of pardon that will forgive } t ou this moment ; 
for cleansing from all sin ; for keeping, correcting, guid- 
ing, healing, perplexity, business life, time and eternity ; 
for the j^oung, middle-aged, old, fatherless, and widows ; 
war and peace ; for home and abroad, poverty and 
wealth, sickness and health, death ; for daily bread and 
raiment ; for homes on earth and mansions in the skies. 
God has floored the earth with promises and roofed the 
skies with promises. We are born on a promise and 
God meets us with a promise : "When my father and my 
mother forsake me, then the Lord will take me up." And 
when we lay us down to die, we will lay our head on a pil- 
low of promise like this : " Be thou faithful . . . and I 
will give thee a crown of life "; and as we soar to God's 
throne, we are accompanied by a promise of a resurrec- 
tion in the first resurrection. They touch life at every 
pore. Now God, if He can, has exhausted Himself in 
promises to us. All these promises are in Christ — not 
one out of Christ and not one fulfilled out of Christ. 
Jesus is the depository and repository ; every gift of God 
is in Christ Jesus. God's promises are God's govern- 
ment bonds. The government has issued bonds to pay the 



* THE PROMISES OF GOD. 275 

national debt, and people buy these bonds, and these 
bonds are held, and the very existence of the govern- 
ment upholds these bonds ; and all God's promises are 
bonds, all paid for. They have coupons, and every 
time you cut off a coupon you get a blessing ; and the 
coupons never exhaust. Jesus stands hack of these 
promises ; they are all given through Him. God does 
not recognize any prayer that is not offered through 
Jesus, and in His name. The heathen pray through 
Christ ; though they do not know His name, they do not 
reject Him, they do not ignore Him. But for a proud, 
self-righteous, Unitarian Pharisee to pretend that he 
prays to the Great All-Father ! — People think that 
God hears prayers, and can do wonders out of Christ. 
Every prayer where open Bibles are, out of Christ, is 
an abomination to the Father. He neither hears nor 
answers such prayer. He would as leave hear the 
devil pray. " Pie that despiseth the Son despiseth the 
Father " ; and you cannot insult God more than by 
rejecting the bleeding, loving Son of His bosom ! And 
every one who proposes to offer prayer except through 
the blessed Son of God is an insult to Pleaven. God 
saves no man who has heard of His dear Son who prays 
not through Him. When we pray we take these prom- 
ises to God the Father, and plead them in the name of 
Jesus, and they are cashed by the Holy Ghost. They 
are God's checks. Jesus signs them with His blood, and 



276 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

the Holy Ghost honors and answers them with power. 
Joseph suffered. Joseph's wisdom secured the corn; 
and Joseph who suffered to provide the corn was the 
one to distribute it"; and, in like manner, God sends all 
to Jesus. He carries the keys ; all sinners, angels, and 
saints go to Jesus, and in Jesus we receive the promise. 
So when you want pardon or cleansing or help, fly to 
your knees, take the promise and plead the name and 
birth and death of Jesus, and give God no rest day nor 
night until He considers your case for the sake of His 
Son. They are all " yea " ; that word means "yes," all 
yes promises, and yes means "true"; they are all true 
" in him "; absolutely true, divinely true, eternally true. 
The word " yea " means they are so true that they need 
no amendment, no revision, no enlarging nor paring 
down. They come from the mind and nature of God, 
and express the veracity of Gocl, and the little promise is 
just as great in God's eye as the big promise. We talk 
about big and small promises, — they are just as true the 
one as the other; the dewdrop contains the same attri- 
butes as a great lake , and what you call a little promise 
contains the attributes of God as a whole volume of 
them. His veracity is involved in every little promise : 
" Heaven and earth shall pass away, but not a jot fail." 
Now, what is a " jot " ? It is the name of a little Hebrew 
letter, " yod" the smallest in the whole alphabet, and 
" tittle " means a punctuation point ; now, Jesus said, 



THE PROMISES OF GOD. 277 

God has put so much of His eternal veracity in His 
promises, that not one letter or punctuation point shall 
fail. Your faith or doubt has nothing to do with the 
truth of God's promises ; it will effect your experience. 
You may say that a ten dollar bill is a counterfeit ; your 
faith does not make it true, nor does your doubt make 
it a counterfeit. So you may reject God's promises, but 
they are true whether you believe them or not. 

When Luther began preaching on justification by 
faith, men doubted, but that did not change the truth. 
Doubting does not change the veracity at all. The very 
day that Eve ate the forbidden fruit, God revealed 
provision for justification through the promised seed. 
Justification was true in the eternal past, when the 
world was not made ; so that the doctrine was as true as 
God is true before angels were made. Your faith does 
not change the truth. Some get the notion that if they 
believe in sanctification it is true, and if they don't it 
isn't. They think they have been in the Church a long 
while, and do not need to believe everything ; " of course 
not ! " They do not feel called on to believe every- 
thing taught in the Bible. Jesus, on His way to 
Emmaus, said, " O fools, and slow of heart to believe 
all, etc." They believed nine tenths of the Bible. They 
believed in the divinity of Jesus, but not in the resur- 
rection. So they get the notion that sanctification is a 
doctrine " I can believe if I want, and needn't if I don't 



278 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

want to." Your faith has no more to do with the veracity 
of the doctrine than the gleaming of a star. It is true, 
whetheryou believe or not. A drunken fellow saw cars 
going by electricity, and he said, " This thing that don't 
run by horse or steam or anything else, I am going to 
upset it ! " The consequence was, he was nearly killed, 
and the lightning thing went right on. Now heaven 
and hell are true as God is true, and they go right on 
whether we believe or do not believe ; and if we get in 
their way they will grind us to powder ; and if we get 
on the heavenly train it will carry us to glory. 

The next word is "Amen." This means to be ful- 
filled, accomplished, brought to pass, so let it be, that is, 
fulfilled. The "yea" promise is a basis for faith, the 
"Amen" is a basis for experience ; "Amen" means that 
the promise has passed into experience ; the thing has 
come to pass. When Eve got the promise it was a 
"yea," and when Mary held the Babe in her arms it 
was an "Amen " promise. So when you lay your head 
on the "yea" promise the "Amen " promise passes into 
your own experience. It is a promise for knowledge. 
When you go to a distant city, you get a simple piece of 
paper ; you think it doesn't look like a trip to New 
York. It is a "yea" promise, just as lesponsible for 
your trip as the Pennsylvania Railroad is. All the cap- 
ital of the railroad company is at the back of that bit of 
paper, and if they do not fulfill that, promise you can 



THE PROMISES OF GOD. 279 

burst the business. As you go on your ride, the con- 
ductor punches your ticket ; when you get to New 
York it is an "Amen " ticket. So you start on the 
journey to heaven ; you start on a promise of pardon, 
and then promise for purity and guiding ; and as you 
pass the various stations on the road to glory, God 
will cash the promises until all are cashed. Caleb said, 
" There hath not failed one good thing." Where Abra- 
ham went it was a strange land, but God gave him a 
great bundle of His promises ; he invested a handful and 
laid down to die without owning any land. He died 
without owning any, and he laid in Machpelah for cen- 
turies on a handful of God's promises ; and Joshua 
came and got the "Amen." You wonder how God 
can convert you. You take a promise, — " Dear God, 
you promised to save sinners," — you take hold and 
hang on to it, — " Lord, I believe you bled and died for 
me," — and if you expire, on your dying bed, like Abra- 
ham, with your handful of God's promises, and if 
you believe, the Holy Ghost will soon give you the 
"Amen." And if you will take the promise, " I will, 
be thou clean," you will get the "Amen." Do 
you know that if you try to make yourself happy you 
will be miserable ? You cannot breathe naturally nor 
easily if you try ; that instant you can't breathe at all 
naturally. So when you try to make the Lord save 
you, you fail. You leave the promise to God and the 



280 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

u Amen " to God. You must not say, " Lord, I will 
believe as soon as I feel." When you take hold of the 
wire of a galvanic battery, and break your connection 
with what goes against the electric current, you will 
feel the shock. God's promise is the wire ; His hand 
has hold of one end of the promise ; you take hold of 
the other and you will feel the shock. You have noth- 
ing to do with making yourself feel happy. Happy or 
not, believe God, and if He wants to let His promise 
fail, "Amen," let Him do it. If He wants to disappoint 
a poor sinner like you, let Him do it. Get your check, 
get your ticket ; have you got your money ? Yes, here it 
is in a check. So you take the Lord's promises ; you take 
a promise and say, " Thank you, Lord, I have got deliv- 
erance." Bunyan took a promise and unlocked his 
prison with it. God's promises are "Amen " if you 
comply with the conditions, and God gets the glory of 
every promise. Every time a promise is fulfilled it 
glorifies the Promiser , it advertises His veracity and 
throws a new luster over His name. 

Suppose a strange man comes and makes a promise to 
you, and gets you to make a business meeting with 
him, and you begin to transact business with him ; for 
every promise kept his character comes out more and 
more, until after twenty years, having never deceived 
you, you say, " That man is glorious." A man that 
keeps his promise brings out his gloriousness. Now, 



THE PROMISES OF GOD. 281 

when God makes promises and keeps them, — century 
after century He has never been known to fail or not 
keep time, — that brings out His glory. And He has cov- 
ered the earth with promises ; Palestine is filled with 
kept promises. So when you plead in anguish, from the 
very answer of your prayer the luster is on the face of 
Jesus. But God could not make a promise unless He 
had some one to make it to ; and so when God makes 
us a promise and keeps it, God gets the glory, but He 
gets it by us, that is, we give God a chance to show 
Himself. If it hadn't been for saving sinners we would 
never have known what God was. They show what 
He is by letting people see that He can save them. 
We would not hear a sound except for the auditorial 
nerve. Here is a man playing on a musical instrument; 
he is simply striking the air, and that shakes the nerve, 
and I hear beautiful music ; so he gets the glory of the 
music. But were there no such nerve, nobody could 
ever hear it; but he gets the glory by me. If there 
were no clouds you would never see the glorious sunset 
and the gorgeous sunbeams ; the black cloud is there, 
and the sun throws his ray on the cloud and makes it 
glorious, — the black cloud catches it. The sun gets the 
glory, but it gets it by the black cloud. A man drops a 
piece of carbon on a stream of electricity, that has no 
life, no wisdom, nor sense ; nothing but a burnt stick. 
But there goes a current of electricity, and the current 



282 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

is caught by the stick, and oh, what glory ! and as you 
stand there you are praising the electricity, and it gets 
all the glory, but it would never have gotten it but for 
the poor burnt stick. Now, we are poor burnt sticks, 
and God's Word is a wire through which goes a cur- 
rent of Holy Ghost fire, and nobody sees it ; but here 
comes a poor soul, needy and sinful, and becomes ad- 
justed to the promise, and like that stick, falls on the 
current, and the Holy Ghost transforms him, and all 
the neighborhood sees the light. What is that man ? 
Nothing but a poor burnt stick set on fire of the Holy 
Ghost; and we see the glory, and we magnify the Lord. 
He gets the glory, but He gets it by that poor burnt stick. 
God will cash your check here. Open a bank account ; 
now just present your promise, and the Holy Ghost will 
cash the promise and send you away with the "Amen ■' 
in your soul. Just let the Lord save you. Pick out 
your promise, and plead the promise you want. 



CHAPTER XIX. 

ISHMAEL AND ISAAC. 

"For it is written, that Abraham had two sons, the one by a 
bondmaid, the other by a free woman. 

" Which things are an allegory: for these are the two covenants; 
the one from the mount Sinai, which gendereth to bondage, which 
is Agar." —Gal. 4: 22, 24. 

{WOULD not have been authorized to say that the 
experience in the household of Abraham was a type 
of spiritual experience, unless the apostle said so ; but, 
under the light of the Holy Ghost, the apostle presents 
very strong arguments to illustrate the spiritual life, 
the beginning and perfecting of that life, and he draws 
this illustration of the patriarch's family from the 
Old Testament. In Abraham's family we see the 
difference between the spiritual life and the carnal life : 
he " had two sons ": one, a child of the bondwoman, 
who was " born after the flesh," the other the child of 
"promise," born from above. Hagar represents the 
legal Church, the Church of Mount Sinai ; Sarah, the 
true spiritual Church, the Church of Pentecost, the 
Church of the Holy Ghost. Hagar's child is in bondage. 
The apostle draws a comparison between the children of 



284 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

Hagar, in bondage, and those of Sarah, which are the 
spiritual children, free, liberated by the Holy Ghost. 
The child of the carnal side persecutes the child of the 
spiritual side. We might apply this lesson by showing 
that in all ages there has been a legal Church, a Church 
in bondage ; a Papal Church ; an infidel Lutheran 
Church ; a worldly, ecclesiastical Church ; and by show- 
ing the difference between the revival and the legal 
Church. There has always been a revival Church ; 
throughout all ages there has been a remnant ; and, 
right along side, the overshadowing of the cold Church 
of formality and spiritual slavery. And what is true 
of the whole Church is true of its individual members, 
as a rule. We have in our own selves a miniature 
Abrahamic family : we have in ourselves that depraved 
nature of which Ishmael is the type ; when we get 
converted we have the impartation of the spiritual life, 
of which Isaac is the tj^pe ; in their coming to- 
gether, their clash, we have the same conflict as those 
two boys ; and in our complete deliverance from all sin 
we have the " casting out," like that of Ishmael. The 
first part bears on conversion. I always preach the first 
blessing as an infallible prerequisite to the second ; 
the second would be absolutely useless without the first. 
I will notice, first, the " new life." 

When Isaac was born, there came into Abraham's 
family a new life — spiritual, God-given by promise, 



ISHMAEL AND ISAAC. 285 

by faitli — of dominant power and authority and 
influence ; and in the birth of Isaac we have one of the 
most perfect illustrations of regenerating grace in our 
hearts. If you want to understand the nature of the 
new birth, you have it here. The new life that came 
was a supernatural one : God told Abraham, when a 
hundred years old, and Sarah past age, that they 
should have a son, and that he should be the true heir, 
and that "in him should all the nations of the earth be 
blessed." So you need not expect anything of Ish- 
mael ; I will give you an heir out of whom shall come 
David and Jesus and the salvation of the world. It 
was to be such a remarkable life that it came contrary 
to the laws of nature. So you receive in your heart, 
at conversion, a life produced by supernatural power, 
as Isaac in Abraham's household. If Abraham had 
gone to scientists or philosophers or physiologists, 
they would have said that it was against universal 
history and law, and was impossible. They talk so 
about your conversion. Tell a worldly man the great 
current and bent of your sinful nature, and he will say 
that for such a being to become pure and gentle and 
kind and loving is contrary to natural law ; and so it is. 
When God converts a sinner He goes right in the face 
of natural law in matter and mind. It is a miracle. 

A great many people get the notion that conversion 
is being " patched up," an outgrowth of morality, and 



286 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

some say that holiness preachers underrate conversion ; 
but the ones who do that are the ones who are not 
too much converted themselves. We teach that it is 
a miracle; it is coming down into the machinery of 
darkness and life, and introducing Chris tliken ess con- 
trary to the instincts and laws of nature. When He 
converts a soul He does a greater miracle than in 
raising a dead man from the grave, for one is a change 
of material condition and the other a change of the 
spiritual nature. You say, " Oh, but I am such a bad 
case ! " But when God converts you there will be a 
miraculous change in all your nature. 

The second point is, he was born " by faith." If 
Abraham had doubted God's promise, Isaac would 
never have come into the world. He believed God 
without stopping to consider the difficulties in the way. 
The instant a promise is held out to you, you go to 
arguing, and while you are arguing your faith evapor- 
ates and is gone. Abraham believed God without stop- 
ping to argue, and so Isaac was born. If you want a 
new life it will come by faith. God says, " I will take 
away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give 
you an heart of flesh." When God promises to change 
your heart, it is your place to believe God. Don't stop 
to reason about the difficulties in the way; just say, 
u Thou didst make me, and Thou canst make me over 
again." It is your place to believe, in spite of every- 



ISHMAEL AND ISAAC. 287 

thing. Though hell and earth has piled up difficulties, 
yet if you will believe you will receive a new life in 
your heart as Abraham in his home. Isaac, when born, 
was the dominant ruler in that home. When only a 
clay old he had more authority than Ishmael at sixteen 
years of age. Before, Ishmael had everything his 
own way, he was the heir; but when Isaac was born 
the scepter was taken from his hand, and every bit of 
wealth and honor and glory went over to the new- 
born child. So until you get converted, depravity is 
your boss, but from the moment God converts your 
soul the Holy Ghost life becomes the dominant power. 
From the moment you are born of God your spiritual 
life is the controlling life. A man may have been a 
swearer from boyhood, but in one moment the new 
life is stronger than all those years of depravity, his 
feelings, his friendships, his wealth, his power, all he 
has, is handed over to a new life. Depravit}*- may still 
linger in the heart, but it is stripped of its power; it is 
repressed ; it may exist, but it don't have authority. 
There is a great difference between having sin in the 
heart and having it to control the heart. Brother 
McDonald wrote a verse in which occurred the 

words,- — 

"Lon£ has evil dwelt within." 

Some one changed it to, — 

" Long has evil reigned within," 



288 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

It is a bad change, for there is a vast difference ; it 
is one thing to have inbred sin on the throne, and 
another to have him sitting waiting to have you carry 
him to execution. 

Isaac was the controlling life. That is the state of a 
child of God. Your conversion is an incoming of a new 
life from God , it puts everything else under tribute to 
it. From the moment we are regenerated we are able 
to control the remaining evil tendencies in the heart, 
and while you have wrong tendencies, they don't rule 
you; your tongue prays instead of swearing, your 
hands work for God and not for Satan ; that is so of 
every child of God. 

Third : These two lives haven't gone far together 
before there comes another phase, — the time came for 
Isaac to be weaned. They made a great feast, and 
Ishmael's jealousy was aroused ,• he knew Isaac was the 
true heir. He tantalized and vexed Isaac ; and Sarah 
said to Abraham, "You must cast out this bondwoman 
and her son." After you have had the new life im- 
planted . in your hearts, by and by God calls every 
child to come to the weaning time. John Wesley said 
that he believed a short while after we are born of 
God, the Holy Ghost made convictions for something 
higher ; the Holy Ghost calls upon us to be " weaned." 
The young convert lives on emotions, on his friends, 
etc.; he lives on "milk." He is a baby; can't walk 



ISHMAEL AND ISAAC. 289 

alone ; has to lean on external aids, — on recurring re- 
vivals, on preachers, on emotion, or some outside 
"somebody." Now, God calls for every converted soul 
to be "weaned"; then they will take "strong meat." 
And you mark : when the day comes for weaning, your 
depravity will begin to make war in your breast, and 
you will find that when the Holy Ghost is drawing you 
out to higher things, this inbred sin, this depraved 
nature, old " Ishmael," will mock and make fun of you. 
Hell blow hot and he'll blow cold; if you pray in 
public, and make a good prayer, he'll flatter you, and if 
you pray a poor prayer he will make fun of you ; he 
will either try to make you a fool or a coward. If you 
speak or work for God he will make fun, and if you 
don't he will accuse you of never being saved, and will 
tell you how mean you are. No matter how you act, 
inbred sin will always tantalize ; it is an eternal grum- 
bler. No matter if you have an ounce of it or a ton, 
an ounce of powder on fire will act up to its capacity 
the same as a ton of it on fire. A little rattlesnake will 
wriggle his tail and hiss just like an old rattlesnake 
"fifteen" years old. So you take a refined gentle- 
man or lady, or some lowly, humble person, and if 
inbred sin is in the heart it will behave the same ; it 
is not the quantity but the quality. As long as you 
are trying to serve God it will hinder and bother 
you. always putting objections to you, That bad boy 



290 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

(Ishmael) would take Isaac's toys and make him cry, 
and then tantalize him because he did so ; inbred sin 
will take your joy from } r ou and then sa} r , " Ciy ! " and 
tantalize you. You are a genuine Christian, but look 
how Isaac is tantalized by Ishmael ; he lias no rights 
there, but is a perpetual trouble. So is your inbred sin ; 
and though you have a divine life in }*ou, you find that 
inbred sin will prevent your progress. 

Fourth : Ishmael must be cast out. This hurt Abra- 
ham's feelings ; he was " grieved." Hagar had her 
tent, but these women and boys were making trouble 
for him. Sarah talked and reasoned with him, and 
nine tenths of his heart were with Sarah though his 
heart was grieved ; but he knew she was led of God. 
God always is on the side of a pure woman. Sarah 
represents the spiritual Church; and when the holy 
Church says, " Cast out Ishmael," we feel grieved and 
say, " I am willing to give up my idols, etc., but I 
didn't know of such a tremendous crucifixion." We all 
want to be holy, but can Ave pay the price? "It will 
destroy my own notions of propriety, and injure my 
reputation, etc. ; it will ' grieve ' me to take Ishmael 
out of my heart." But the Church keeps pressing you; 
and God says whatever that sanctified Church tells you 
to do, do it. The Church bids you " cast him out." 
God always takes sides with the spiritual Church. 
Nevermore read about it and argue about it, but cast out 



ISHMAEL AND ISAAC. 291 

the evil thing ; if you don't he will damage the life of 
Isaac. 

I fancy that the parents are watching while these two 
boys are at play, when suddenly Ishmael fires up and 
strikes Isaac ; and Sarah says to Abraham, " Do you 
see that ? that [Isaac] is your heir 5 from him shall 
come in David's line the Jesus that shall save the 
world ; do you see how valuable that life is ? " " Yes, I 
see it," says Abraham. "Can you afford to have that 
child's life in danger? Ishmael will get larger and 
larger, and some day he will kill Isaac. Hadn't you 
better cast him out? " Abraham "sees " it, and he calls 
Hagar and sends them out. You have got good religion 
in your heart, but your religion is being injured by your 
depravity. The one was born of God, — that is all right, 
— the other is born of depravity. You do not want to 
cast out self-will, but that is your Ishmael, winch may 
some clay kill your piety. Now, do you want a happy 
death? Your happy death is in your religion. Your 
heaven, your resurrection, is wrapped up in your reli- 
gion. Can you afford to have anything endanger your 
religion ? Though you may not have much, it is worth 
taking care of; it is divine. You can't afford to have 
pride and rebellion; can't afford to keep Ishmael in 
your heart when he may murder your piety. When 
Abraham cast out Ishmael, then Isaac had everything 
to himself \ he was free. Notice, lie was the very same 



292 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

child! before, hindered and bothered, now the same 
with the hindrances and bother taken away. 

Some think that sanctification is a sort of new kind 
of religion. You have got the only kind you will ever 
get, only noiv religion under difficulties — Isaac hin- 
dered by Ishmael. Now, when you are " purged from 
sin " you have the same religion with the hindrances all 
gone. Then it will be a free religion ; nothing to dis- 
turb or bother it ; it will have the whole house to it- 
self; religion going over the whole mansion, — spirit, 
soul, and body. It is the same religion. What you 
want is to remove the hindrances and let piety have 
full control ; } t ou cannot afford to keep anything in 
your heart that will interfere with your eternal weak 
The unconverted get a new life, and believers may 
have the hindrances "cast out" and have joy and com- 
fort in all the house of the Lord. 



CHAPTER XX. 

OUR CALLING. 

" Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, sep- 
arated unto the gospel of God, 

"(Which he had promised afore by his prophets in the holy 
scriptures,) 

"Concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of 
the seed of David according to the flesh; 

"And declared to be the Son of God with power, according to 
the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead: 

" By whom we have received grace and apostleship, for obedi- 
ence to the faith among all nations, for his name : 

"Among whom are ye also the called of Jesus Christ: 

"To all that be in Rome, beloved of God, called to be saints: 
Grace to you and peace from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus 
Christ. 

" First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all, that 
your faith is spoken of throughout the whole world. 

" For God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in the 
gospel of his Son, that without ceasing I make mention of you 
always in my prayers ; 

" Making request, if by any means now at length I might have a 
prosperous journey by the will of God to come unto you. 

" For I long to see you, that I may impart unto you some spirit- 
ual gift, to the end ye may be established." — Rom. 1 : 1-11. 

OMITTING the parts in parenthesis, I have selected 
the parts to make perfect sense. Here are two 
principal parts to the verse rendered : — (1) The call- 
ing of St. Paul and the calling of believers in Rome. 



294 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

Notice the play on the word " called ": " Paul, a 
servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, sep- 
arated unto the gospel of God, . . . among whom are 
ye also the called of Jesus Christ [v. 6] : to all 
that be in Rome, beloved of God, called to be saints." 
Put the " calling" of St. Paul and the call of believers 
side by side. (2) The other part is the conversion of 
these Roman believers, — the marvelous, world-wide no- 
toriety of these believers, — and Paul's earnest request 
to see them and impart the spiritual gift, that they 
might be established. The subject is : The establish- 
ing of believers in the principles of the spiritual life. 

First, their wonderful conversion. " I thank my 
God through Jesus Christ for you all, that your faith 
is spoken of throughout the whole world." What a 
wonderful conversion they must have had, that, before 
the days of post offices, telegraphy, newspapers, — in 
the clumsiness of those old ages, the notoriety of their 
conversion had gone out over the Romish Empire. 
Csesar had his couriers, who went out through all the 
Romish Empire, and they would carry letters to all 
parts of the kingdom, as far as Germany and to 
Mesopotamia, and into India and Arabia and to Algiers, 
and the whole Empire was reached by them ; and they 
not only bore dispatches, but they repeated matters of 
information, and, as it was in old stage-coach times, the 
whole neighborhood turned out , so they told the won- 



OUR CALLING. 295 

derful news of Jesus who had died, and of His resur- 
rection — about His having been killed and come to 
life again, and that people were believing on Him, and 
giving up their idols for Him. The news was carried 
throughout Egypt and Arabia; so St. Paul says, "I 
thank God" your conversion was not merely being 
baptized, etc., but it was a radical change, causing you 
to give up your idols. He praised God that they had 
such conversion ; that is the kind we want you to 
have, — that will cause you to fling away your idols, 
sins, and rebellion, and count everything loss but your 
interest in heaven. St. Paul, after this wonderful 
change, says, " I want to see you that I may impart a 
certain spiritual gift." What was that gift? Could 
it be any other than the baptism of the Holy Ghost? 
" I long to see you, that I may impart unto 3-011 some 
spiritual gift, to the end ye may be established." To 
impart by my faith, through faith, a spiritual gift that 
will establish you. 

Some would say, " If these Romans had such a noto- 
rious conversion, what more did they need ? " Friends, 
unless we are rooted and grounded in conversion it 
would not be such a blessing to us. Every man needs 
to be established as well as to enter into business. 
We seem to understand this in everything else but 
religion. If a business man doesn't establish himself 
he will soon become bankrupt. Perhaps a merchant 



296 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

starts out in business ; he makes a start ; but if lie 
doesn't establish himself and pay his debts he'll go to 
bankruptcy. But in religion people seem to lose their 
common sense ; just go to church, observe all the ordi- 
nances and forms, and you are all right. Now there 
are people whose religion seems mortgaged, and if they 
do not get the baptism of the Holy Ghost they will 
soon lose all the religion they have got. The word 
" establish " means to complete, to perfect, to confirm, 
to root, to ground; when the apostle uses this word, 
he does it to signify the perfecting of the young con- 
verts in the principles of conversion. The baptism of 
the Holy Ghost does not give you any graces not ob- 
tained at conversion ; every converted person has love, 
joy, peace, faith, patience, hope, etc., — all the fruits 
of the Spirit. The baptism of the Holy Ghost does n'ot 
add a single virtue or grace. But, while he has all the 
graces, this baptism clarifies, strengthens, and confirms 
these graces. When I was born I had as many fingers 
and toes, and as many bones in my body; my growth did 
not add any. Yet the members of the body need to be 
purged and cleansed and strengthened ; and so, when the 
Holy Ghost converts your soul, He puts all these graces 
into you, but they are not perfected. Love, faith, hope, 
humility, are not completed. There are still lingering 
germs of original sin, and original sin will always 
weaken, impare, and choke these graces, though they 



OUR CALLING. 297 

are all there. The baptism of the Holy Ghost applies 
the blood of Jesus, and purges out all inbred sin, and 
these graces can unfold and expand without opposition. 
When all doubt is gone, faith is made perfect in a 
converted heart. Every grace is perfected up to its 
capacity by the baptism of the Holy Ghost. In order 
to get converted we want to know what it is. When 
the Lord changes your heart you have the principle 
of submission ; yet the point is, is your submission 
entire, complete ? There will be times when there will 
be rebellion. The general tenor of your heart is sub- 
mission, but there will be times of uprisings, - against 
obeying the Holy Ghost ; and whereas you are submis- 
sive, it is not complete. Why ? There is a root in the 
heart, of original sin, and it will shoot up and manifest 
itself in rebellion. Have you not felt that in many 
things you could say, " Thy will be done," and yet in 
some one thing you cannot say it ? What does it show ? 
That you are not perfectly submissive ; you do have 
the fruit of the Spirit, but it is rendered imperfect 
because on some points a lack of it. When the Holy 
Ghost comes to establish you, the principle of submis- 
sion will be complete ; you will be submissive on every 
point, and your submission will be steady and fixed, — 
established. In your sleep and when you awake, 
happy or sad, your heart is held steady in a state of 
submission; you are "rooted and grounded" in it. 



298 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

Before you had submission, but it wasn't complete; 
there was just enough to spoil your joy; but the bap- 
tism of the Holy Ghost establishes you. 

And second, the principle of faith. When you were 
converted, can you remember how you trusted God? 
You had no "Dutch" philosophy mixed with your 
faith then ; you trusted God ; you prayed simply, 
not doubting the atonement, nor God's especial care 
for you. You believed it all ; you believed when 
you read that " all things work together for good 
to them that love God"; you believed in all church 
members ; you were a " child "; your faith was child- 
like and simple ; you had that simple faith in special 
providences. But as the years have gone by, there 
has come something that became mixed up with 
that childlike faith you had when converted. The 
Church is not what you thought ; trials come, and you 
read outside books ; you get philosophical, and get 
things mixed with your faith. All the while old 
depravity will help you out, and you soon come to 
wonder if the Bible is inspired or if there is a special 
Providence ; you get philosophical. You may get 
rich, and get wiser than you were. I have known 
men who, when young, behind the plow handle, were 
simple and childlike ; but when they became manufac- 
turers they became wise, and got away from the simple 
state, and their faith got mixed up. Maybe we get 
learned, — a "D.D.," perhaps. 



OUR CALLING. 299 

A brother said once : " Brethren, when I was a little 
boy I believed in God and Jesus, and had so much 
joy, — I wish I could have the simple piety of my 
boyhood days." He meant he had become great; 
had waded through book after book, and that so much 
German and French had got mixed with his faith ; 
it is so easy for a learned or a rich man to get the 
" big head." We need to have the root of inbred sin 
destroyed; skepticism killed at the taproot. So long 
as you have depravity in your heart, you have infi- 
delity at the taproot ; the Holy Ghost removes it, and 
you become "rooted and grounded" in faith to God, 
all the way along. Though you may have a great 
deal of knowledge, you have a faith that keeps above 
philosophy and mere reason. What is grander than 
to see a man with half a university in his head, with 
a simple faith in God ? You need a faith that is com- 
plete every day, so that every day we trust the blood 
of Jesus right now ; trust His special providences 
every day ; a faith that never falters or questions, and 
so " rooted and grounded " that you go on believing as 
easily as you breathe. You will go on believing God 
when sick and delirious. I have met people who forget 
their own name, but never the name of Jesus. A faith 
fixed by the Holy Ghost ; when God roots and grounds 
your faith, it stands like Gibraltar. Birds may sing 
or thunders howl, — when meeting angels or devils, it 



300 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

alwaj^s believes in Jesus without any misgivings. We 
need a faith, absolute faith, that is fixed as the Bible ; 
a trust that has no limit to it ; a faith that throws you 
out and lets you drop in God, without asking how far 
it is ; that faith that reposes in God. You get the 
faith of conversion established ; that is perfect faith. 

The third principle is love. Oh, how I loved every- 
body when I was converted ! and when a wicked boy 
kicked my Bible out of my hand, I did not think of 
getting angry with him ; I just loved him. Our hearts 
are tender and susceptible. Young converts are happy 
and affectionate, and they don't want to wound or 
grieve. You want to lose all hardness and roughness, 
and get the barnacles taken off ; you need to get these 
principles in your heart, and then have the " establish- 
ing " by the baptism of the Holy Ghost. If you do not, 
you will lose that sweetness of your early love ; you 
will get where you serve God on principle, not on love. 
You will get fastidious ; it will annoy you if a brother 
or sister talks aloud; everything has to be "velvet- 
lined ; and you will think you are not as happy as you 
used to be, but you think you are "settled down." 
You don't like much noise ; you get philosophical and 
ecclesiastical. You need melting ; you want to get back 
to where there is more gush and glory in your soul. We 
get harsh unconsciously; we get overbearing to chil- 
dren. The human heart is deceitful, and unless purged 



OUR CALLING. 301 

from this "root of bitterness" our hearts will take on 
this frigidness ; and so Paul says, " Now," in your early 
love, I want to see you, that you may get this bap- 
tism of the Holy Ghost ; that you may be a happy, com- 
plete church. Old people will either mellow or soar 
down ; of all sour things the sourest is a sour preacher ! 
Why is it that some few of them sour down ? Because, 
as the years go by, the heart unpurged will take on a 
frigidity. But what is more beautiful than to see an 
old person sweet and happy and genial? We want our 
hearts so cleansed and purged that we will always keep 
a sweet spirit ; we need to be confirmed in that love. 
Don't you want to get something that will not only 
take you back to your first love, but keep you there, 
and not only that but will make you more mellow, 
sweeter? You want to be confirmed in love. 

We need to get where our hearts never will get cold 
or frosty; we all need to have our hearts not only 
blessed with the " first love," but that we will be abso- 
lutely fixed the balance of our lifetime. The baptism 
of the Holy Ghost will do this. How do you get it? 
Paul says, "I am called and you are called, etc." If 
you write on a piece of paper how Paul came to be an 
"apostle," I will underwrite and tell you how we get 
to be " established," — here is a parallel line. Did Paul 
make himself an " apostle " ? We talk about " self- 
made " men, but Paul was a " God-made " man. Paul 



302 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

never did make himself an apostle ; neither can I make 
myself a " saint," for my calling is parallel with his. 
Nor did he develop into an apostle ; neither can you 
develop into a saint. St. Paul was made an apostle by 
this simple process : .God made him an " apostle." And 
God makes you a " saint "; the cases are parallel. God 
converted Paul, and He converts us ; you follow Paul, 
and you will get into your " saintship " just as he 
got his " apostleship." God said, "Will you consent to 
give up your Jewish notions, and consent to take the 
name you now persecute ? " — "Yes, Lord." — "Will 
you be my minister to the Gentile world?" — "Yes, 
Lord." — "Will jou consent to be a martyr? " — "Yes, 
Lord." — "All right, Paul ! " Then God put His hand 
on Paul, and made him an " apostle." He got to be an 
apostle by saying " yes " to God without arguing the 
question ; he got from a murderer to an apostle without 
saying long prayers. So you will get to be a " saint " 
in five minutes by saying " yes " to God. "Will you 
agree- to be a little humble anybody? willing to be or 
suffer anything I ask?" — "Yes, Lord." That is all 
He wants ; and when you say the final " yes," the Holy 
Ghost puts His hand on your heart and says that you 
are a " saint " before God. 

When I was in California, a lady was seeking a " clean 
heart," — had been seeking four years ; the most devoted 
woman in the church, but she panted for full redernp- 



OUR CALLING. 303 

tion. This was the last meeting, and Brother McDonald 
told me that that sister " ought to trust God to-night." 
I told her she had wept and prayed to God enough, and 
asked her if she would agree to say " yes " to anything 
God might ask in all the years to come. She hesitated. 
" Don't you want to and mean to say 4 yes ' ? " and she 
said, " I want to say it and I will. God being my Helper 
I will say ' yes ' to God "; and she repeated it, and she 
rose up and said, " I will say 4 yes ' to God," and then 
she commenced, "Glory!" Simply saying "yes" was 
all God wanted. She thought she wanted emotion, 
but all she wanted was to say " yes " to God. If 
you want to get converted, surrender and say "yes" 
to God, and if you want to become grounded in the 
principles of conversion come and say " yes " to God. 



CHAPTER XXI. 

SOUL REST. 

" Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I 
will give you rest. 

"Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek 
and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. 

"For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light." — Matt. 11: 
28-30. 

"HOME unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy 
\J laden, and I will give you rest." More prop- 
erly, "I will rest you." That is a perfect promise, com- 
plete in itself. The next verse is the giving of another 
promise ; " Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me ; 
for I am meek and lowly in heart : and ye shall find " — 
not develop it, not grow it, not make it — ye shall 
discover soul rest. Then follows the conclusion. After 
we have found this second rest, then — "My yoke is 
easy, and my burden is light." 

I never knew how to read that text in my life until 
the Lord gave me the experience which the text con- 
tains. I will give a simple exegesis of the words. I 
do not wish to add anything to the Word or to take 
anything from it, but simply explain the Word as it 
lies there, 



SOUL REST. 305 

Here are two kinds of rest that are promised to those 
who come to Jesus. The first rest is promised to those 
who come repenting of their sins, laboring with the 
struggles of their own sins, heavy laden, with a sense 
of guilt and of darkness, and a dread of future wrath. 
When they come to Jesus, He gives them rest by re- 
moving the guilt and by forgiving their sins. After 
the penitent is pardoned and regenerated, he is then 
in a condition where he can take the yoke, and never 
till then. You cannot find a passage in the whole 
Bible where God ever invites any one on earth to serve 
Him till after he is converted. No one can enter the ser- 
vice of God until he is born of God, no more than any 
one can enter upon the services of human life until he 
is born in the human life. 

Now take the yoke of Christ, and learn that He is 
meek and lowly in heart, and when that lesson has 
entered the soul that soul will make a discovery 
greater than that of Columbus. It will not create 
something, it will not make something, it will not 
develop something, as we have been taught the last 
two hundred years, but that soul will find something 
that God made before He made the world. St. Paul 
tells us that the redemption in Jesus Christ is older 
than the foundation of the world, and when we get 
perfect heart rest we simply find what God made 
before He made Gabriel. And after we find heart 



306 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

rest, then the yoke of Jesus is easy and then the 
burden is light. 

That is Scripture. Oh, how many times this Scrip- 
ture has been butchered, by just giving it all to the 
unconverted, and inviting sinners to come to Christ! 
"You come to Christ and He will give you soul rest, 
and you will find that the yoke is easy and the burden 
is light ! " And they have come and repented and 
been converted and joined the Church, and then found 
out that the preacher told a lie. They found that the 
yoke was not easy and the burden was not light. 
There are one million Christians to-day in this country 
serving God that are struggling to get to heaven, and 
they knoiv that the yoke is not easy and the burden 
is not light. One thousand preachers are preaching 
the gospel, and they are talking away at it, and hun- 
dreds of deacons and stewards and trustees and official 
members and superintendents and Christian workers 
are serving God the best they can, but it is uphill 
business. Jesus does not say that every Christian 
finds the yoke easy and the burden light. He does 
not say that. He says that when you get the second 
rest, then the yoke will be easy and the burden light. 
That is what He says. 

Perhaps some of you will think it is straining a 
point to say that there are two kinds of rest in this 
old text. Well, I am glad that the doctrine of full 



SOUL REST. 307 

salvation is much more radically taught in the original 
language than in our translation. It is a wonder that 
in the days of King James, away back in the dark 
ages (for King James lived in the dark ages of reli- 
gion) — it is a wonder, I say, that we got such a perfect 
version of the Bible as we did; and if it had not been 
for the superintending of the Holy Ghost, we would 
not have got it. Bat the more you search in the origi- 
nal languages, the more completely we find the doc- 
trine of sanctification taught; and in the very words 
of this text the first rest is a different kind of rest 
from the second rest. 

The first rest signifies a temporary rest, a rest with 
a view of going on again in the journey. The word 
in the twenty-eighth verse for rest is a verb ; the word 
in the twenty-ninth verse for rest is a noun : and there 
is a vast difference between the verb rest and the 
noun rest. The first word is a term which signifies 
a repose or a refreshment, or a rest with a view of 
moving on, with a view of being transitory. But the 
word rest in the second instance is a term that signi- 
fies durability, perpetuity, immovability. It signifies 
a deep, abiding, permanent repose, that is utterly un- 
disturbed by the turmoils of life or by the vicissitudes 
of time or of eternity. 

The Bible furnishes such a comment on these two 
words. When the Jews came out of Egypt, — the old 



308 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

women and young people and children, — they had 
marched all night long; they had slain the Passover 
lamb, sprinkled the doorposts, and marched through 
the sea, — they were utterly fatigued and worn out. 
When they got beyond the Red Sea, and sat down on 
the bank of the sea to rest, while they gazed with com- 
placency over the ruins of Pharaoh and his host, and 
Miriam danced on the sands and sung her song, they 
rested, and the people and the children took a long 
breath. What sweet, what refreshing rest came to 
their hearts as the thought broke in upon their minds 
— the brickyards are gone, Pharaoh is gone, the per- 
secution is gone, the making bricks without straw is 
gone, the taskmasters are gone, and there is a great 
wall between them and us ! Oh, what sweet, refresh- 
ing rest that was ! 

Now that is just exactly the meaning of this word 
in the twenty-eighth verse. It means a rest just like 
that. Then they crossed over into Canaan, which I 
want you to remember is always a type of the baptism 
of the Holy Ghost and not of temporal death. There 
is not one verse in the whole Bible to prove that the 
crossing over Jordan means temporal or physical death ; 
and if we have been taught that way, that is the fault 
in our education ; it is not in the Bible. The land of 
Canaan, in every passage in the New Testament, refers 
to the baptism of the Holy Ghost,. which is "the prom- 



SOUL REST. 309 

ise of the Father." God promised to Abraham the 
land of Canaan. Now, just as the land of Canaan was 
the promise of the Father for the Jewish Church, the 
baptism of the Holy Ghost is the promise of the Father 
for the Christian Church. That is as straight through 
the Bible as an arrow. 

When the Jews entered the land of Canaan, they 
found stone houses that they did not build, and wells 
of water that they did not dig, and oliveyards and vine- 
yards that they did not plant. God thrust out the old 
inhabitants (for they had no legal deed to it anyhow ; 
they had only a " squatter sovereignty ") and gave them 
the land. They marched right in, entered the stone 
houses, and went to housekeeping ; and the Word says, 
" They entered into their rest." 

Don't you see that the rest in the stone houses in Ca- 
naan, with the vineyards and the oliveyards and the 
wells of water, was a very different thing from the 
rest on the bank of the Red Sea? Now, that second 
rest that the Jews got in the land of Canaan is exactly 
what the Word means in the twenty-eighth verse. It 
means permanent, abiding, settled housekeeping with 
God. I see Dr. Cullis, in his " Songs of Victory," has 
printed a good hymn ; it is the one hundred and sixty- 
fourth hymn. This hymn was composed by a Method- 
ist and it was composed as a commentary on this 
text : — 



310 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

" Breathe, oil, breathe Thy loving Spirit 
Into every troubled breast ! 
Let us all in Thee inherit, 

Let us find that second rest. 
Take away our bent to sinning; 

Alpha and Omega be ; 
End of faith as its beginning; 
Set our hearts at liberty." 

I want to explain now, briefly, the first rest. If there 
are any unconverted people here, or any church mem- 
bers who are doubtful as to whether they have ever 
experienced a change of heart, I ask your attention 
especially to this first rest. Jesus in this first verse is 
addressing penitents. " Come unto me, all ye that 
labor and are heavy laden," and I will rest you. There 
are two words in the text that explain the state of every 
penitent, — the word "labor" and the word "laden." 
When persons are under conviction for sins, there 
are two characteristics that invariably mark them. 
One is, they begin a struggle with themselves. They 
begin to try to make themselves better. They break off 
their outward sins, which is all right and must be done 
by divine grace ; and then they try to reform their 
inner life. So that the will of every convicted sinner is 
aroused and he begins to grapple with himself: " I will 
be a better man." He makes tremendous resolutions, 
and he resolves on the negative what he will not do, 
and then on the positive side what he will do. He then 



SOUL REST. 311 

pushes his resolutions into the inner life, and begins to 
endeavor to govern his temper, control his words, regu- 
late his passions, and govern his heart. He does not go 
far before he finds out that he has a piece of work on 
hand utterly beyond his strength. Every sinner is so 
deluded that he thinks he can break off his sins ; he 
thinks he can be a good man very easily ; but when 
he tries it he finds he is rowing against a current that 
he cannot stem. And that involves an awful battle of 
the will with the soul and its sins ; that brings tremen- 
dous labor, hard work, soul toil. Now, Jesus means 
that when He says "ye that labor"; He means people 
struggling to save themselves. 

Another feature of every convicted sinner is that he 
is heavy laden. When people begin to commit sin, God 
sees to it that the machinery of the heart gets clogged. 
Just as the breaking of a thread in a loom in one of 
these big mills in Lowell will stop the machinery, so 
when a child begins to commit sin, — knowingly and 
willfully gives way to sin, — God makes the loom of the 
child's conscience stop in some way. There is a jar, 
there is a sense of guilt, there is a sense of vileness, 
there is a sense of sorrow and a burden that drops 
instantly on the young man's conscience. Now, it may 
be that you people here never sinned very much except 
little white sins. But if you can recollect when you 
were a girl or boy, can you recollect the first lie you 



312 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

told — big, black lie ? Can you recollect the first time 
you stole something from father or mother ? Can you 
recollect the first oath you swore or that you came near 
swearing? Can you recollect some other sin that 
almost startled you ? I can ; I can remember it now. 
And do you know what an awful sense of burden 
came on your heart? You felt — I felt as if a lump 
of lead had been put right on my little heart, and I 
felt as if somebody heard me when I said a bad word. 
And when I reached home somehow I felt as if 
mother had heard me, although she was a quarter 
of a mile away. There was a load on my heart. 

Now, sinners go on living in sin until they don't feel 
their load, they don't feel their burden. But when 
they do get under conviction, God rolls back on the 
conscience the guilt of all the sins of all those years, 
and gives a sense of awful pressure on the heart of a 
convicted sinner. 

" Here on my heart the burden lies, 
And past offenses pain my eyes." 

Now, those two words Jesus gives us are a photo- 
graph of every convicted sinner. There is a struggle 
in his will and a burden upon his heart. For hundreds 
of years the various branches of the Church have been 
offering a remedy for a person in this fix. One says, 
" Go to the confessional, go to your priest, go to a nun- 
nery, go to a monastery, go to the church, go to the 



SOUL REST. 313 

water and get baptized, go to the bishop and get con- 
secrated and confirmed, go and join the church on six 
months' probation, run here, run there, count beads 
and say prayers, join the church, and go to work for 
Jesus." That is the damnable heresy that has been 
preached for two thousand years almost. Jesus Christ 
sends a bugle blast to every heart on earth that is rent 
and torn by a sense of sin, and never says a thing 
about popes or preachers or churches. But He says, 
" Come to me, come to me ! Come to the historical, 
personal, living, crucified, dead, risen, reigning Savior ! 
Come to me, come to me ! I, out of my own divine, 
sacrificial remedies, out of my own gracious, infinite, 
redeeming purpose, out of my own atoning blood, out 
of my own Word, out of my own Spirit, out of my 
own infinite will — I will rest you, I will impart to 
you freedom from guilt and wrath, and I will give 
you rest and send you to your home as light as a 
feather." 

That is the way God "treated me. I remember the 
night out in the pine woods of Virginia — how bright 
the moon shone ! — when the Lord gave me this rest 
from guilt and fear and wrath and hell. If there 
is an unconverted person here, dear friend, you just 
go right to Jesus. You get saved from your guilt first, 
and then you can attend the church, then you can be 
baptized, then you can be confirmed, then you can do 



314 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

ten thousand things ; but you go to Jesus first ! And 
the more people you go to, before you go to Christ, the 
more they will bother you and the more they will 
hinder you. O Jesus, bring us to Thyself, in prefer- 
ence to all the popes and the angels! Bring us to 
Jesus. 

Now the next rest. From the time that the Lord 
blots out our sins it changes our hearts. From that 
time the Spirit of God calls us into a life of service. 
Being born of God we can now serve God, and so, 
"Take my yoke upon you." You are now converted ; 
you are now God's child; your sins are now pardoned. 
The wrath has now passed away from you, and now 
you come as a living Christian to bow down your neck 
and take the yoke, which is only an emblem to repre- 
sent the perfect will of God. You, as a child of God, 
now bow down and take the yoke upon you in absolute, 
entire, and unlimited surrender to the divine will ; and 
by taking that yoke upon you, you learn the secret of 
the inner life, the secret of inner peace and inner cleans- 
ing and inner heart rest. 

You know, brethren, the Lord does not yoke up any 
cattle but His own. God has no right to yoke up the 
devil's cattle. And when God says, " Take my yoke 
upon you," you may take it for granted He is talking 
to His own cattle. 

You must not be offended because I call you God's 



SOUL REST. 315 

cattle, because I had rather be one of God's cattle than 
to be an angel of the devil ; and if God condescends to 
call ns His cattle I am glad. Any name that God puts 
upon me I will gladly wear. If He calls me a worm, — 
"Amen, Lord; I had rather be a worm for Thee than 
be an angel for the devil." 

So when the owner of the young ox puts the yoke 
upon his neck, the young ox does not criticise the yoke. 
He does not know just what the yoke is made of, he 
does not know what kind of wood it is made of, he does 
not know how thick it is, he does not know the length 
of the yoke; but he simply bow's his neck and the mas- 
ter puts the yoke on. And so we don't know the 
things God will do with us in the years to come. You 
do not know what the outcome of this meeting is going 
to be. We do not know what God may or will do 
through us and by us. We know it is pure and holy 
and good, but we do not know the details of God's will. 
We do not know how long it is or how deep it is or 
how wide it is. Yet we know the nature of it, and if 
we know the nature of God's will we can leave the 
details to Him. 

We know that the yoke in the Bible represents the 
human will. A proud-necked, stiff-necked people 
represents a stubborn people. When we bow down our 
wills entirely to God as far as we know and as far as 
we don't know, all we have and all we don't have and 



316 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

would like to have (for it takes a great deal harder 
struggle to give up all that we have uot got, but would 
like to have, than to give up all we have), and so not 
only give up all we have but give all that we don't 
have ; when we make an absolute yielding of the past, 
present, and future, all we have and all we are, to God, 
and He puts His perfect will down upon our souls, it is 
the juncture, it is the union, of our perfectly submissive 
wills and the almighty divine will coming upon ours ; it 
is the union of those two wills that opens to us the 
flood gates of the inner life. When those two wills 
come together, then you learn that He is meek and 
lowly in heart. 

It took me some time to cipher out how the Lord 
could connect a yoke with learning. The word "yoke" 
reminds me of the farm, the farmyard, and the cattle, 
and the implements of work with oxen ; but the word 
"learn " reminds me of colleges and academies and schools 
and sciences and art and philosophy. And it took me 
some time to take the word " yoke " and the word " learn " 
and see the relation between them. Jesus says, "Take 
my yoke and learn" I said, " Where is the connection 
between the word 'yoke ' and the word 'learn ' ? " Then 
this thought came to me (being raised on a farm and a 
farmer's boy) : Why, a little ox never knows anything 
until you have put the yoke on him. It is through the 
yoke on the back of his neck that he gets his education. 



SOUL REST. 317 

" Well," I said, " that is it exactly." Go down east, in 
Maine. See those boys in the winter time drive the 
great oxen round; how they will have their sleds, pile 
on the great white-pine logs, and stand off and talk to 
those oxen — two, four, or six hitched to a great sled; 
and how they will make them go right and left, and 
round that tree and by that big bowlder and behind 
that stump. You will stand off and see how they drive 
the team, and you will say, " I declare, those steers act 
as though they had been to college." And they have. 
They have been to steer college. They have been to 
school and they have learned. There was a time when 
those oxen were greenhorns — didn't know anything. 
But the yoke was put on their necks, and by the yoke 
on their necks they learned to pull and to " gee " and 
" haw " and back and go ; and all the learning they ever 
got was through the back of their necks. 

Do you know that is an absolute photograph drawn 
by the Son of God of you and me ? It was God who 
made us, and God knows how to arrange for us ; and 
God knows that, just as an ox gets all his learning 
through the back of his neck by a yoke, we get all our 
spiritual learning from our submissive wills under the 
will of God. If we will submit, like the young oxen, 
to the yoke of the divine will, we will learn the marvels 
of that book and the marvels of the Holy Ghost and 
the marvels of the things of God. 



318 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

Brethren, a perfectly submissive will is the key to all 
spiritual enlightenment. Jesus says, " If any one will 
do my will, he shall know of the doctrine." 

It does not matter what your creed has been or how 
you have been raised. If you are determined at all haz- 
ards and all risks to do the perfect will of God, your per- 
fectly submissive will will be the key to j our spiritual 
instruction, and you will know the doctrine. 

And so in this text. It is by giving ourselves utterly 
up to God that we learn the way of full salvation. 
The only way that God can get into our hearts is 
through the will. In the case of a sinner seeking par- 
don, just as he begins to relent and repent there dawns 
light upon his mind, and in perfect helplessness and 
submission, as a sinner, he finds the way of the cross, he 
finds the way of pardon. And so it is in seeking full 
salvation. It is through the perfect yielding of the will 
that we find the entrance into the second veil. 

Now there are thousands of Christian people that 
would love to argue about holiness, that would love to 
debate, that would love to have it explained. There 
are people that will sit up all night long to discuss 
holiness, who will not get down on their knees and 
pray five minutes for the experience. There are minis- 
ters who will write volumes on volumes to show that 
you must live with depravity in your heart all your life, 
sooner than get down in the straw and pray a half hour 



SOUL REST. 319 

for a clean "heart. Human beings are fond of magnify- 
ing the human side. It is the instinct of depravity to 
magnify man and minify God. It is the instinct of de- 
pravity, even in Christian people, to magnify the man 
side and minify the Jesus side of salvation. And so 
the carnal mind leads Christian people always to insist 
on what I can do, and what I must do ; I want to do 
this and I want to do that and I want to do the other; 
no man can live without sin, and no man can do this 
arid no man can do that. And God is not mentioned 
once; the blood of Christ is not mentioned once; 
the Holy Ghost is not mentioned once. It is man, 
man, man ! Where is God all the while ? Where is 
the "Fountain opened in the house of David" all the 
while? Where is that vast red sea of blood that 
Jesus poured on the world all the while ? And here we 
go marching down the ages, — man cannot do this, and 
man cannot be holy, and man cannot do that ; and our 
creeds are full of man, man, man ; our sermons are 
full of man, man, man ; and the majority of preaching 
is magnifying man, glorifying man, — the brilliancy 
of man, the dignity of man, the culture of man — until 
I get sick and disgusted with the everlasting hash and 
rehash. Thousands of students are sent out every year 
from the colleges of this land, and in every baccalau- 
reate sermon it is, Make something of yourself 7 Make 
a man of yourself! Make yourself ! Make yourself ! 



320 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

You take the Monday morning papers of Boston and 
New York and London, and read the sermons preached 
on Sunday, and you will find man has been magnified 
nine hundred and ninety-nine times, where you will find 
not one single word about the blood of Jesus and the 
Holy Ghost. I am telling the truth. 

I tell you, we never will learn salvation, we never 
will leaiii the deep things of God, we never will learn 
the way of a clean heart and perfect love and perfect 
soul rest, until we lay our miserable big heads in the 
dust, where they belong. All our catechisms will go 
together in the dust; all our prayer books and all our 
sermons and all our churches and all our college learn- 
ing and all our culture and all our brains have got to 
go where they will go by and by when the clods cover 
you. And when we put our heads at Jesus' feet, where 
they belong, there will come a ray of light from His 
eternal nature, and He will shine through hearts and 
He will begin to reveal to us something of Himself. 

"Learn of me!" "Learn of me!"— "Well, Lord, I 
have got to hear Rev. So-and-so preach." — "Learn of 
me!" — "Lord, I have been reading eight or ten or fif- 
teen volumes on the higher life." — "Learn of me!" — 
"Lord, I have been watching these holiness folks for 
ten or fifteen years and they are cranky, odd, and all 
that." — " Learn of me ! " — " Lord, my doctrine in my 
church doesn't teach these things." — "Learn of me! " 



SOUL REST. 321 

— "Lord, my surroundings and circumstances are thus 
and so." — "Learn of me !" 

If every Christian on this earth could be locked 
up in a dungeon with Jesus Christ five minutes, they 
would know something ; away from their kinsfolk and 
country cousins, and all the college books and all 
associates, and locked up with Jesus Christ in a dun- 
geon, or shipwrecked with the Son of God on the high 
seas, He and they lashed to the same spar and all the 
rest drowned, — in about five minutes they would learn 
something. " Learn of me, for I am meek and lowly 
in heart." A perfectly submissive will will soon 
learn the way of salvation. "For I am meek and 
lowly in heart." 

O brother, the inner life of Christ ! The apostles 
walked by His side for three years, and in those three 
years they were converted, their names registered in 
heaven. They cast out devils and did many wonderful 
things, and they learned a great deal about Jesus, but 
they never learned the inner life of Christ till after 
Pentecost, When Jesus had gone back to the bosom of 
the Father, and the Holy Ghost had descended, and 
their hearts had been purged from all doubt and fear 
and the carnal mind, under the illumination of the Holy 
Ghost they learned more about the inner nature of Jesus 
in one hour than they had learned in three years. 

St. Paul said there was a time when he knew Christ 



322 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

according to the outer man. Jesus was an historical 
Jesus, a redeeming Jesus. To a great many people 
to-day He is an outer Christ. O brothers and sisters, 
have you learned the inner Christ? have } r ou learned 
the inner life of Jesus? He says there is a way for 
us to learn this inner life, — Learn that I am meek and 
lowly in heart. That is a learning that the noisy world 
never gets. That is a learning colleges cannot impart.. 
"I thank thee, O Father, . . . that thou hast hid these 
things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed 
them unto babes." There is an inner life in Jesus. 
There is an inner fellowship with His nature. There 
is an inner sense of His purity and of His calmness 
and of His fidelity and of His gentleness and love. 
There is an inner life in Christ that is worth more than 
words can tell. I have heard somewhere of a college 
called the "College of the Sacred Heart.' There is 
indeed a college of the Sacred Heart — one that no 
man can raise: it is the Sacred Heart of Jesus ! Learn 
that "I am meek and lowly" in my heart. 

We come up to this mountain top m order to enter 
the heart of our Savior. We have not come here to be 
like a lot of parrots, everlastingly prating of the mere 
outside things of religion. We have learned the outer 
life of Christ; we have learned all that. But we are 
here that we may enter His inner heart life, and parti- 
cipate in that inner life of our Savior by submitting to 
His will and learning of Him. 



SOUL REST. 323 

The word meekness and the word lowliness seem to 
be the same. The word meekness, however, means hu- 
mility in reference to God : the word lowliness means 
humility in reference to our fellow beings. To be meek 
means to feel our entire nothingness in the presence of 
God: to be lowly means to esteem others better than 
we are. The one is a perpendicular virtue and refers 
to God, the other is a horizontal virtue and refers to 
our fellow men. Now, take these two virtues and they 
make a cross. To be perfectly meek means to get 
down to the bottom of yourself, to get where you are 
nothing in your own feelings and estimation. You are 
nothing. You get where Abraham got. He is our 
pattern, in one sense. Abraham said, " I am dust and 
ashes." Ashes is less than dust ; it is burnt-up wood. 
When we get where Abraham got, to be dust and 
ashes, that is meekness. 

Then, to be lowly in heart we are to esteem others 
better than we are. Let their faults alone ; stop ever- 
lastingly criticising people ; get where we see our own 
faults so much we have no time to fix our eyes on 
other people; get where we don't feel that we have 
got to manage God's Church ; get where we stop being 
everlastingly annoyed over this thing going wrong and 
that thing going wrong, and where we are trying to 
boss the Church of God and trying to work ourselves 
to death to manage God's Church. A great many 



324 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

preachers backslide and lose their salvation by trying 
to manage God's Church instead of getting salvation 
themselves. Get where we stop stumbling over other 
people ; get where we stop being sour, peevish, and 
cross over other people ;. get where we feel that we are 
the least and the lowest, — that is to be lowly. The 
one virtue goes straight up to Gocl, the other virtue 
goes straight out toward our fellow men; and they 
make a cross, and on that cross we die. And when we 
die on that cross we get sanctified. 

When we get where we are perfectly nothing in our 
own estimation in God's presence, and when we get 
where we are perfectly willing to love everybody with- 
out living on their faults and their frailties, that is the 
cross of the inner heart. That is not the wooden cross 
that they put on steeples ; that is not the golden cross 
that dangles at fashionable ladies' ears; that is not the 
historical cross that gleamed near Jerusalem; that is 
not the poetical cross that is wreathed in flowers on 
your parlor walls ; but that is the cross of Jesus Christ. 
That is the cross that brings salvation. Not the cross 
of history, not the cross of gold or wood or poetry, but 
the cross that is made of the Holy Ghost inside your 
soul; and when the Holy Ghost puts the cross inside 
your soul, that will be to you the power of God unto 
your salvation. That is the cross we die on — we min- 
isters, we laymen, we Christian people ; that is the cross 



SOUL REST. 325 

that the old Adam dies on, the cross of perfect humility. 
When we learn that lesson, and die on that cross, we 
will be like Jesus. He closed His eyes on Calvary in 
order to show us God. In the suffering and agony of 
the cross He closed His eyes and His Spirit went out. 
But the very minute after He closed His eyes in death, 
He opened them upon the splendors of heaven, and 
saw in the redeemed thief that He bore to heaven the 
first fruits of His cleansing blood. 

Just . so, in a similar way, when }^ou and I die 
in our inner nature, when the poor old self-life dies 
on the inner cross of humility in the heart, we will 
open our eyes the very next step and will find 
something. Just as Jesus, after He died, opened His 
eyes and saw the splendors of heaven, just after you 
die on the cross of humility you will open your eyes 
and find soul rest. There it will be. Jesus says so. 
You shall find rest to your soul. 

Oh, how it breaks upon you ! Just after you prayed 
all you could pray and gave all you could give and 
wept all } r ou could weep and struggled all you could 
struggle and exhausted your magazine and bankrupted 
your resources, and went out into nothingness and 
said, " Lord, here I am ; I am nothing, nothing," — 
you remember that after your old self-life struggled 
and died, and you felt you were utterly gone, the very 
next step quietly and silently the Spirit seemed to open 



326 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

up to you something, and you saw the way of faith. 
" Why yes, Lord, I see ! I just believe ! I believe ! " 
and you began to look round. "Why, what else could 
I do but believe?" And in that hour the Holy Ghost 
opened up before you the wonderful vista of faith. 
Just believe. Believe what ? Why, believe the blood 
cleanses. Believe the Holy Ghost is here. Just be- 
lieve God will take care of you. Just believe God 
knows all about you. It is faith, simple faith. You 
see the way of faith open up until it seems as if 
the easiest thing in the world is just to believe. It 
is as easy as breathing ; nothing to do but believe. 
When you get done with all the preliminaries faith 
comes easy. And you will find it ; you will not make 
it. And you will say, " Why, isn't this strange ! Why, 
Lord, here was the cleansing blood all these years ! " — 
"Certainly, my child." — "Why, Father, when I was 
born I was born under the cleansing blood ; I was born 
under the redeeming scheme ; and here is the fountain 
that has been waiting for me all these years, waiting 
for me to get born, waiting for me to get converted, 
waiting for me to get consecrated! Here it is. Here 
I find myself in a vast, unlimitable ocean, without a 
bottom or bank. Here I find that God has made pro- 
vision to sanctify me through Jesus Christ before the 
world was made." 

How many there are trying to grow into holiness, 



SOUL REST. 327 

trying to struggle into a clean heart ! They have been 
struggling for forty years, and the heart is as mulish 
and stubborn now as forty years ago. When you learn 
this lesson you will find something. Oh, it is a pleas- 
ure to find things ! A mother drops her ball or spool 
of cotton on the floor, and see how quickly the little 
fellow runs to find it. It is a joy to find things. Co- 
lumbus didn't make America; he just discovered it, 
just found it. And that poor fellow in California did 
not manufacture the gold ; he did not grow it, as you 
are trying to do. He found it. His mill needed 
repairing, and while he was digging out the foundation 
for the mill he found the gold. Brother, you go at the 
same work. You dig down. You have come up here 
hungry and thirsty, panting and yearning for full sal- 
vation. Let us dig down. And in our poverty, in our 
distress, when we get down we will find something. 
We will not make it, but we will find it already made 
to order, — soul rest, rest of heart, rest of mind, rest 
of conscience. The will does not struggle as it used 
to. The will does not struggle to try to hold you 
up. You will find you are resting in God. Your faith 
does not try to hold on to God's promises as it used to, 
but your faith reposes upon the promises. Your intel- 
lect finds rest. You are not disturbed or annoyed by 
theological problems. You have a mind clear as sun- 
light and as settled as Gibraltar. Your mind has no 



328 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

theological fog now; you have no more doubts about 
inspiration and divinity now, for the doctrine is as 
clear as the stars in heaven — no mist and no fog, and 
your heart has a settled and abiding love ; the nutter is 
gone. You are not annoyed so easily. You used to 
get vexed, and take a whole week to get back in good 
humor again. You used to go to the train to meet a 
friend, and because he didn't come you became vexed 
and bothered. Some of your neighbors or friends had 
a wedding and didn't invite you, and you felt slighted 
and angry. You were going to preach a sermon and 
had it all nicely arranged, and there came a rainy day 
and a small audience, and you were all down in the 
dumps. But when God cleanses your heart there 
remains a calm, sweet rest. You are not annoyed by 
common things. There is a stability and there is a 
repose. A few winds may blow and ruffle the surface 
of your mind, and your thoughts may be perplexed, 
and in your sensibilities you may have sufferings. But 
down in the deep secret of your soul there is one ever- 
lasting calm. Ships may sail above and cyclones may 
howl, but in the great ocean deeps of your soul there is 
an everlasting calmness that judgment days and resur- 
rection days and death days cannot shake or disturb. 

O friends, we are pilgrims and strangers. We need 
this rest of heart. We need this inner calm. Why not 
now f 



CHAPTER XXII. 

*noah's dove. 

"And John bare record, saying, I saw the Spirit descending 
from heaven like a dove, and it abode upon him." — John 1: 32. 

"And it came to pass at the end of forty days, that Noah opened 
the window of the ark which he had made : 

"And he sent forth a raven, which went forth to and fro, until 
the waters were dried up from off the earth. 

"Also he sent forth a dove from him, to see if the waters were 
abated from off the face of the ground; 

" But the dove found no rest for the sole of her foot, and she re- 
turned unto him into the ark, for the waters were on the face of 
the whole earth: then he put forth his hand, and took her, and 
pulled her in unto him into the ark. 

"And he stayed yet other seven days; and again he sent forth 
the dove out of the ark; 

"And the dove came in to him in the evening; and, lo, in her 
mouth was an olive leaf plucked off : so Noah knew that the 
waters were abated from off the earth. 

"And he stayed yet other seven days; and sent forth the dove; 
which returned not again unto him any more." — Gen. 8: 6-12. 

WE learn from this first passage that the Holy Spirit 
is represented under the emblem of a dove, 
and taking this for a key, we can go back to this other 
passage from Genesis, and interpret the significance of 



* This sermon was preached at various camp meetings and conventions, 
and written for this volume on Steamship Pavonia, Cunard line, in mid- 
ocean, Sept. 5, 1891. 



330 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

Noah's dove. We learn from Paul that the events re- 
corded in the Old Testament happened unto them for 
our instruction, so that all the things connected with 
the deluge and Noah's ark are to be included in those 
types of instruction. The metaphors of the Holy Scrip- 
ture are always consistent, the same metaphor running 
through the Old and New Testaments. Thus Jesus is 
compared to a lamb, from the earliest and the latest 
portion of Scripture. In like manner the Holy Spirit is 
typified by a dove. The first place in the Bible where 
the Spirit of God is mentioned, as moving on the face of 
the deep, the word literally signifies " brooding," as a 
bird sitting on eggs. There are also certain metaphors 
or types of Satan. When Satan is spoken of in opposi- 
tion to Jesus he is compared to a " roaring lion," which 
is the natural and fiercest enemy of the lamb. And 
when Satan is put in opposition to the Holy Spirit, he 
is compared to a raven, the natural enemy of the dove. 
Thus is the parable of Jesus ; when the good seed is 
sown the fowls of the air, of the raven species, imme- 
diately pick up the grain, to prevent the Spirit using 
it in saving the soul. 

Some may argue against this, that the raven which 
fed Elijah was a minister of good; but the raven is a 
bird of prey, and, in the East, a great thief as well, 
often snatching meat from market-places and homes for 
its young, and God had a sovereign right to cause 



NOAH'S DOVE. 33l 

this bird to drop the meat it had taken at the feet of 
Elijah. 

We see from this Scripture that Noah sent forth the 
raven first, but not with any specified mission, but the 
dove he sent forth definitely to see if the waters were 
abated ; and in the recorded behavior of these two birds 
we see shadowed forth the traits of Satan and the traits 
of the Holy Spirit. It is said of the raven that it 
" went to and fro," without returning to the ark, indi- 
cating a restless, wandering spirit, as if there were 
no desire to return home to its master. We find the 
same spirit alluded to when Satan is compared to a 
lion. He is called a "roaring lion," going about 
"seeking whom he may devour." The same Satanic 
trait is referred to in Job. God said to him, "From 
whence comest thou?" and Satan answered the Lord 
and said, " From going to and fro in the earth, and from 
walking up and down in it." 

This spirit of wandering from God and from home, 
and roving over the wild wastes of nature, that cannot 
rest nor find a center of repose, is the weary spirit of 
Satan, and the spirit which he has infused into our fallen 
race. This spirit comes out in a thousand forms in the 
behavior of men. I have stood by the cage of the lion, 
and seen him wildly and restlessly pace up and down his 
cage, as if it were impossible for him to take a moment's 
rest. That is the spirit that poisons the heart of hu- 



332 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

inanity, and produces all the wild ramblings of men. It 
causes them to wander from God and from the parental 
roof, to rush away from mothers' prayers and the gentle 
restraints of home. It causes the youth to heartlessly 
neglect decrepit age. It causes many a husband and 
many a wife to break their vows and move to strange 
lands. It breaks up many a home and breaks down 
many a heart. They wander over sea and land, they 
hide in crowded cities, they sequester in lonely moun- 
tains, so that if our eyes could see with the vision of an 
angel, we would see many thousands of human spirits, 
the exact type of the raven from the ark, "going to 
and fro in the earth," far from God and from the circle 
of love, utterly devoid of rest within themselves and 
without a center of rest in the universe. 

Now it is to save humanity from this wretchedness 
of soul, this Satanic wandering of heart, that the Holy 
Ghost, under the emblem of a doves has been sent out 
from heaven, that He through the means of the atone- 
ment may thoroughly renovate the heart, utterly de- 
stroy the raven trait, and bring the soul back to its 
infinite center of repose, bringing it home to God and 
making it satisfied in and with God. 

We may presume it was on the Sabbath when Noah 
first sent forth the dove. It was evidently the day of 
worship, the day of gathering up information from God. 
He waited other seven days and sent her forth the sec- 



NOAH'S DOVE. 333 

ond time, and the third Sabbath sent her forth the third 
time. Inasmuch as those sendings forth always took 
place on the Sabbath, we gather the deep religious sig- 
nificance of this threefold sending forth of the dove ; 
and when we add to this the text from St. John, where 
the Holy Spirit came forth from heaven as a dove, we 
feel very sure that this threefold visit has its counter- 
part in the historical visits which the Spirit has made 
to our race and to our individual hearts. The dove in 
her first visit found no place for the sole of her foot ; in 
her second visit she found some place to alight on ; in 
her third visit she found all the place ready for occu- 
pancy. We find the counterpart of this in the dealings 
of God's Spirit with our race, in the three historical 
dispensations of religion ; viz., the antediluvian, the pro- 
phetic, and the Christian ages ; also its counterpart in 
the dealings of God's Spirit with the individual. 

1. At the first going forth of the dove, she found no 
place for the sole of her foot. As far as her wing 
could fly or her eye could see, there was nothing but 
boundless ocean and sky ; and when night came on, like 
a dutiful child she returned to her home in the ark. 
In this incident we see a fitting emblem of the first visit 
that the Holy Spirit made to our fallen race. That 
visit extended over the antediluvian period, in which 
the Holy Spirit was constantly striving with human 
hearts if haply He might find a place upon which to 



334 LOVE ABOUNDING, 

build up the kingdom of God. But in those ages so- 
ciety was utterly disorganized. There was no law, no 
settled forms of government, no regard for the author- 
ity of God or of the rights between man and man. 
The wild passions of men, like a seething sea, surged 
back and forth, between despotism on the one hand 
and anarchism on the other. There were giants in 
physical nature and in intellectual ambition, and men 
lived long enough to carry out enormous plans of sin 
and selfishness. Society was like a moral sea, full of 
fogs, and floating ice towering in cold sublimity, 
and crashing against each other with terrific force, but 
upon which no flowers of love ever blossomed. Upon 
such a scene the Holy Spirit found no material from 
which He could construct an organic church or inaug- 
urate a great revival. It is true there were many cases 
of illustrious piety in those times, but they were spo- 
radic cases of religion. Enoch, Noah, and others were 
witnesses of truth and ministers of warning, but there 
was no large family or company of believers at any one 
time through whom God could operate to set up His 
kingdom or to evangelize the mass of corruption that 
rapidly gathered and filled the earth. To use a med- 
ical phrase, there were cases of sporadic piety, but no 
means of making an epidemic of religion. 

The reason for this, on the human side, was that in 
all those ages the divine record. does not mention one 



NOAH'S DOVE. 335 

godly ' woman ; and it is eminently true that as by 
woman came the fall, so by woman comes the means of 
redemption. There has never been the beginnings of a 
church, or a great moral reform in the world, that was 
not mothered by some strong, saintly woman, some 
Sarah or Elizabeth or Mary, or Susannah Wesley or 
Barbara Heck, who nursed into being the agencies that 
under God have been channels for the Holy Ghost to 
revolutionize society and set up the kingdom of God. 
The antediluvian agencies lacking such a mother, the 
Holy Ghost could get no commensurate foothold upon 
the social territory ; and after striving many long cen- 
turies, when the moral darkness grew denser and denser, 
and God saw that the night of a watery grave was the 
best alternative, then the Spirit, like Noah's dove to the 
ark, returned to the throne of God, leaving the night of 
judgment to settle upon the irreclaimable scene. 

A similar visitation of the Spirit comes to the heart 
of every sinner; on a smaller scale and a briefer 
period, it is true, but corresponding in type. There is 
in most lives an antediluvian period of wandering from 
God, trampling upon restraints, of wild rushing after 
pleasure, the towerings of vanity or self-seeking; but 
around the hearts of all sinners there moves the Holy 
Ghost, searching for a place of lodgment, striving with 
the conscience, seeking a place to set His foot and build 
the kingdom of salvation. No soul ever born of the 



336 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

race in civilized or savage lands has escaped these vis- 
itations of the Spirit. He has a season of striving with 
every one. He uses every lawful means for gaining 
admittance, — the memories of youth, the recollections of 
a parent's prayer or some early hymn, the warnings of 
every open grave, of every dangerous or sad event of 
life, the preached word, the fear of hell, the allurements 
of heaven, the voice of friends ; whatever can appeal to 
the heart or move the will or pierce the conscience is 
brought into operation, to lead men to repentance and 
salvation. But alas ! in millions of cases He finds after 
all no place in human hearts for the sole of His foot, 
and there is no alternative but the settling down upon 
such souls the gloom of eternal night. When the Holy 
Spirit takes His flight judgment sets in. This was so 
at the deluge ; this was so in the destruction of Sodom 
and Gomorrah ; this is so with the individual sinner 
now ; this will be so at the end of the world : when those 
who have the Spirit are taken out of the earth, judg- 
ment will set in. A climax of all woe is to be utterly 
and forever forsaken of the Heavenly Dove, and if He 
finds in us no place to abide He must inevitably return 
to the Father who sent Him forth. 

2. The second visit the dove made to find the earth, 
she found the mountain tops had reappeared, and 
plucking an olive leaf bore it back to Noah. There is 
much significance in this. The earth was coming forth 



NOAH'S DOVE. 337 

into a new life, and the olive leaf was then, and has 
been ever since, the emblem of peace. The deluge had 
swept away the vast multitude of sinners, the human 
race was to start forth again from a single family, the 
earth was to begin a new career ; already the waters 
were abating, the hillsides were putting forth new ver- 
dure, and, in a historic sense, the world had been regen- 
erated. Still the water lingered in the valleys ; there 
was a mixed condition of things, and the earth not suf- 
ficiently restored for the dove to make it as yet her per- 
manent abode. This fittingly sets forth the second or 
prophetic period of the world's history, extending from 
the days of Noah to the birth of Christ. During this 
prophetic period, the race historically began a new form 
of moral life. God and men entered into covenants 
with each other; divine laws were given, civil gov- 
ernments established, religious doctrines were published, 
and the worship of God instituted. The biography of 
saintly patriarchs and the prophecies of the coining 
Christ furnished light for rules of faith and practice. 
The Holy Ghost worked through all these agencies, 
and produced many great religious awakenings. The 
olive branch of reconciliation between God and man is 
found all through those ages, so that the Spirit found 
many places where He could and did work mightily 
for the truth. Yet it was a period when the Church 
was in a mixed condition, Remnants of heathenism 



338 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

and idolatry still lingered in the visible Church, and 
as a body it was not yet prepared for the abiding 
Comforter. 

This same phase of history is applicable to individual 
religious life. If we yield to the strivings of the Spirit, 
and are led to the Savior, His forgiveness as completely 
sweeps from the soul all our actual sins as the flood 
swept the sinners from the face of the earth, and our 
moral nature emerges by the power of the Spirit into 
a new life. The olive branch of peace with God is in 
the heart. The springtime of a new moral existence 
has come, and there is an infinite distance between this 
state of things and that of open rebellion to God. 
Nevertheless, we find our hearts in a mixed moral con- 
dition. The Heavenly Dove finds some place in us, 
nay, much place, congenial to His presence and in sym- 
pathy with His purpose; still there are remnants of 
evil. The deep ravines of our moral nature, which lie 
hidden from the general eye, are not yet thoroughly 
renovated. The graces are more or less mixed with 
their opposites. 

We may have seasons of much religious joy and 
prosperity ; sweet are the visits of the blessed Spirit ; 
but in spite of everything we can do there is something 
within us that grieves the Holy Spirit, and oftentimes 
causes Him to leave us in humiliation and sorrow of 
heart. There is some accursed- thing still lingering, 



NOAH'S DOVE. 339 

which prevents Him making His permanent abode with 
us; and in spite of every theological theory, in spite 
of any view which we may form of what conversion 
ought to be, the stubborn fact forces itself upon every 
converted soul that it needs a further work of grace. 

3. Upon the third visit of the dove she found the 
earth dry ; the spring sunshine was rapidly bringing 
out the new growth of vegetation, the hills and valleys 
were being rapidly clothed with verdure ; she found the 
earth ready for occupancy. It was the season for rear- 
ing a young brood, and, obeying the instinctive behests 
of her life mission, she selected an appropriate spot to 
build her nest and lay her eggs, and did not return to 
Noah any more. Now that she found a new world fully 
prepared for her, her mission with Noah and the ark 
had ended and her paramount work was to perpetuate 
her species in the new world. 

In all this we see indicated the purport of the third 
historical visit of the Holy Spirit to our race. The 
work of the Holy Spirit as indicated in the New Tes- 
tament is that He is the executive of the Godhead in 
the plan of redemption ; that it is His office to act im- 
mediately upon the moral faculties of men ; to bridge 
the distance between the written Word and the human 
consciousness, and between the personal historic Christ 
and the soul ; to apply the law in conviction, to reveal 
Christ as a personal Savior, to manifest the love of 



340 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

the Father to the heart. In the carrying forth of the 
fullness of His ministry there must be a preliminary 
preparation ; he must be furnished with all the essen- 
tial facts relative to salvation. The Holy Spirit works 
by using revealed truth; and in the case of a fallen 
race, as ours, He must work through the atonement ; 
and to carry out His full office He must have willing 
and obedient subjects upon which to work. 

We find a combination of all these facts and circum- 
stances upon the da}?- of Pentecost. The Old Testa- 
ment and the words of Jesus furnished all essential sav- 
ing truth. The great sacrifice of Jesus had provided 
ample atonement for the "sin of the world." The res- 
urrection and enthronement of Jesus had lifted the 
means of salvation into infinite sovereignty. The in- 
fant Church, formed by our Lord and collected in fer- 
vent prayer, were willing and believing subjects for all 
the plenitude of the Spirit's works. Every barrier was 
out of the way ; and when the Holy Ghost descended, 
He found, 3o far as God's true Church was concerned, 
all the territory ready for His occupancy. On that 
day He made His official visit to the Church militant, to 
make this earth and the Church of God His abode to 
the end of time. Ever since then the headquarters of 
the Holy Spirit have been on earth. He is now abroad 
among all the peoples of the earth, working upon souls 
in manifold ways ; the Convincer of sin, the Inspirer 



NOAH'S DOVE. 341 

of prayer, the Witnesser to pardon, the Comforter in 
distress, the Guide to the teachable, the Sanctifier of 
believers, the Revealer of truth, the Leader of every 
moral and spiritual movement; without whom the 
death of Jesus would be but a dry, historic fact, the 
Word of God would be but a dead letter, and the future 
world would be mantled in impenetrable gloom. We 
know not the infinite lines of work the Hoty Spirit may 
be carrying forward among other worlds, among other 
tribes of intelligence, but from the New Testament we 
gather that at least during the age of redemption His 
paramount mission is with the sons of men. Hither has 
He come from heaven, and here He is carrying forward 
the greatest plans of infinite love until the Son of Man 
shall come again. 

But this same historical visit of the Heavenly Dove 
has its counterpart in individual Christian experience. 
When the believer gets into such an attitude with the 
perfect will of God as to be perfectly cleansed from the 
carnal mind, so that the Holy Spirit finds no resistance 
to Himself in the heart, He will take up His permanent 
abode there. The application of this truth to personal 
experience is much more important than to the Church 
at large. If He cannot be the permanent Indweller of 
the individual believer, how can He be so with the 
Church collectively ? And as to individual Christians, 
it is more essential that we have the Holy Spirit with 



342 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

us constantly, than to accept the dogma that He is in a 
general way with the Church at large. It is our place 
to see, as far as we are concerned, that the Holy Spirit 
shall have the right of way to all the territory we con- 
trol ; and if we yield Him the uttermost space of our 
being and will, we virtually yield Him the territory of 
the world. When He comes to fill and abide with us, 
He comes, like Noah's dove, to carry out His mission of 
reproducing the life of God in us ; He comes to plant 
in us all saving and transforming truth ; to unite that 
truth to our moral nature ; to unfold that truth in our 
experience, life, and destiny. He comes with the 
words of Jesus and the mind and tempers of Jesus, to 
fashion them into our souls, that we may forever be 
like unto Him that redeemed us. And as Noah's 
dove, in hatching out other forms of life like her own, 
was doing a greater work than in returning to the 
ark again, so the Holy Ghost, in reproducing the 
quality and lineaments of the Christ life in us, is doing 
a work perhaps infinitely greater than any mission He 
could perform by taking His official flight to the heav- 
enly world. 

It may be interesting to notice some of the traits of 
the dove as indicating the work of the Spirit in us. Of 
course there are different species of the dove. The more 
prominent varieties referred to in the Bible are the car- 
riers and the turtledove. But their character in the 



NOAH'S DOVE. 343 

main is alike. One trait of the dove is non-com batrve- 
ness. It has neither the combative spirit in its nature, 
nor claws or beak with which to fight. Its feet and 
beak are soft, and not constructed as weapons of attack 
as is the case with other birds. So far as known, all 
birds will fight except the dove. In this we have a les- 
son taught us by the Savior: "I say unto you, . . . re- 
sist not evil"; "Avenge not yourselves"; "Cease^frorn 
anger." The work of the Spirit is to utterly destroy 
the raven spirit, with its fighting spirit and its tearing 
claws, and to fill us with the meekness and gentleness 
of Jesus. 

Another trait of the dove is the permanency of its 
affections. It is the embodiment of innocence, purity, 
and love, so far as a mere animal can express those 
qualities. It differs from all other feathered tribes in 
that its attachments are life-long. It mates for life; 
only the death of one of the pair causes it to form 
another attachment. Most all varieties of other birds 
mate annually. The work of the Spirit is to bring the 
heart into fixedness of love: "His heart is fixed, trust- 
ing in the Lord." 

" Jesus, Thine all- victorious love 
Shed in my heart abroad ; 
Then shall my feet no longer rove, 
Eooted and fixed in God." 

Believers not fully possessed with the Spirit are often 



344 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

grieved with a tendency to backsliding, with something 
that interrupts their love to God. But the fullness of 
the Spirit destroys the incongruity of the soul, unites 
the heart in a permanent faith and love, causing the 
soul to exclaim : " Who shall separate us from the love 
of Christ ? . . . for I am persuaded, that neither death, 
nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor 
things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor 
depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate 
us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our 
Lord." This is true wedlock of the soul to Jesus, 
which never anticipates a divorce. 

Another trait of the dove is its disposition of watch- 
care and companionship. They never wander very far 
from each other. Especially is this true of the turtle- 
dove species ; except when one of them is detained on 
the nest, they keep very close together while flying or 
feeding. Their habit while feeding is to keep up a 
continuous low call, which can be heard for one or two 
hundred feet, so that, though they do not see each other 
in the grass or brush, they can hear one another's voice. 

Now it is very remarkable that this very trait of the 
dove is expressed in one of the names of the Holy 
Spirit. He is called the "Paraclete," which implies 
companionship — to be within whisper call; to keep 
the soul close to Jesus, so that, though out of sight, we 
may still hear His voice in all the vicissitudes of life. 



NOAH'S DOVE. 345 

" My sheep hear my voice." " Thine ears shall hear a 
word behind thee, saying, This is the way, walk ye in 
it." The saintly John, on Patmos said, "And I turned 
to see the voice that spake with me." 

Another trait of the dove is its remarkable speed 
in flight ; this is eminently true of the carrier dove 
variety. So that if the dove cannot fight as other birds 
do, it can escape its enemy by flight, and thus come off 
victorious without the shedding of blood. It is remark- 
able that it can fly upwards with a facility unknown to 
all other birds. Birds of prey must swoop down, but 
the dove flies upward. I have seen them fly up at an 
angle of sixty degrees. By this faculty they elude 
their enemy. Thus it is with the soul fully possessed 
with the Heavenly Dove. It cannot fight its own 
battles, but it instinctively hides in the Rock of Ages. 
" From the end of the earth will I cry unto thee, when 
my heart is overwhelmed. Lead me to the rock that is 
higher than I ; for thou hast been a shelter for me, 
and a strong tower from the enemy. ... I will trust in 
the covert of thy wings." 

When Satan attacks, when friends forsake, when 
the air seems thick with adversity, like hawks and 
ravens threatening to pounce upon and tear our souls, 
then, with " malice toward none, with charity for all," 
we fly to Jesus for shelter. He is the mighty Con- 
queror. 



346 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

"Jesus, lover of my soul, 

Let me to Thy bosom fly, 
While the nearer waters roll, 

While the tempest still is high; 
Hide me, O my Savior, hide, 

Till the storm of life is past; 
Safe into the haven guide, 

O receive my soul at last." 

The Heavenly Dove hovers over us. Let us yield 
Him all the space of our hearts for His residence. 
The more fully we receive Him to our hearts the 
more certainly we will be received into heavenly 
habitations. 



CHAPTER XXIII. 

TONGUES OF FIEE. 

"And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, 
and it sat upon each of them." — Acts 2: 3. 

THE visible tongue of fire that sat upon each of the 
hundred and twenty in the upper room, was but 
the outward badge of an inward reality, for the next 
verse says that they all spoke "with other tongues, as 
the Spirit gave them utterance." The tongue is the 
most complete and powerful organ of expression with 
which the soul is armed. It is the chief organ through 
which the heart and mind reveal their contents and 
communicate themselves. Every form of thought, 
every mode of reason, every shape of passion, every 
emotion of pain or joy, all alike reveal themselves 
through the tongue. The tongue is related to the soul 
somewhat as Jesus is related to the Godhead. Jesus is 
called the Word of God. He is the mouthpiece of the 
infinite mind and will — the tongue from which the 
infinite heart speaks itself forth to all creatures. In 
like manner man's tongue is the logos of the soul, 
through which the soul reveals itself to others. It is 

347 



348 LOVE ABOUNDING.. 

the chief weapon of evil in the world, communicating 
sin, arousing sin in others, and setting " on fire the 
course of nature; and it is set on fire of hell." It 
is the chief organ of good — preeminently the instru- 
ment of the gospel. 

There have been two great epochs in the history of 
the human tongue; one of cursing and one of trans- 
figuration. In Genesis, eleventh chapter and seventh 
verse, God said, " Let us go down, and there confound 
their language, that they may not understand one 
another's speech." That event and this one in the 
second chapter of Acts stand related to each other as 
the frigid and torrid zones of moral character: with 
the tower builders the Holy Spirit was utterly rejected; 
with the Pentecostal company the Spirit was cordially 
and fully received. In both instances we see miracles 
wrought on the tongue, but in both instances the 
reason for and the conditions of the miracle lay behind 
the tongue in the depths of the heart; and the same 
things practically occur to-day. When people's hearts 
utterly reject the Divine Spirit, it is still true that 
upon moral and religious questions such persons speak 
rashly, ignorantly, incoherently, contradictorily; all 
their talk on religion is but a babble of nonsense and a 
confusion of language. And it is still true that when 
the heart is purified and filled with the Spirit, the 
tongue will speak with wonderful accuracy and unity 



■TONGUES OF FIRE. 349 

upon religious subjects, even though the person be un- 
tutored ; out of a heart full of light and love there 
will come forth a speech that is not contradictory, but 
in perfect agreement with itself and with the Word of 
God. So that the two great miracles of Babel and 
Pentecost are still perpetuated. The reason why there 
are so many divergent teachings in religion, and contra- 
dictory theologies, is because they proceed from the 
darkness of indwelling sin. If the hearts of all religious 
teachers were perfectly sanctified from native depravity, 
and filled with the Holy Ghost, it would unify their 
tongues, so that, in the language of Paul, they would all 
speak the same things on matters of essential truth; 
the babbling theologies would be swept away, the scat- 
tered dialects of religious truth would come into agree- 
ment, and instead of each one speaking according to the 
tongue of old Adam, they would all speak with another 
tongue as the truth is in Christ Jesus. 

This tongue of fire in all its essential power is de- 
signed to be the normal state of the Church during the 
Spirit's dispensation, and is essential to the vital pur- 
pose of true religion. Let us notice how this tongue 
of fire is related to God, to our fellow men, and to 
ourselves. 

1. The tongue of fire is related to God as the chief 
instrument of glorifying the work of Jesus, and pro- 
claiming His wondrous work in the soul. It is the of- 



350 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

fice of the Christian tongue to be a witness for God; a 
simple, straightforward, unbiased witness to the work 
or works that God has wrought in the soul. This 
does not imply that its office is always to make a set 
speech or take the place of a teacher, or to attempt ex- 
plaining the philosophy and processes of the work of 
grace, for in that case the tongue would be glorifying 
the mental powers of self more than the simple power 
of grace ; nor is it in all cases the office of the tongue 
of fire to formally preach or expound Scripture. Not 
all of the hundred and twenty became teachers, for the 
Holy Ghost selected those who should teach; but all 
were witnesses of the marvelous facts that had trans- 
pired in their consciousness. It was only the work of 
God which they magnified on that occasion: there was 
no allusion to the mere works of man. There is noth- 
ing in creation that can so glorify God as the human 
tongue anointed of the Holy Ghost. The tongue of 
formalists, Pharisees, and backsliders, invariably glorify 
self in a disguised manner, and if their religious talk 
be accurately reported, you will find very little men- 
tion of the saving power of Jesus. But the tongue of 
fire reports the supernatural ; it tells of conscious par- 
don, or regeneration, of conscious cleansing from in- 
dwelling sin, of the destruction of vicious appetites; it 
reports the incoming of perfect peace where all was 
storm and disorder; it reports the incoming of light 



TONGUES OF FIRE. 351 

and discernment utterly beyond the natural mind ; it 
proclaims in one and the same breath the utter weak- 
ness of self and the imparted strength from God; it 
minifies self and magnifies grace ; it glorifies not only 
the work of God, but the highest work, — that kind of 
work which other people fail to see or appreciate. 

The highest and finest work which God is carrying 
on is in human hearts. God's work in nature is great 
and marvelous, and many are the poets and philoso- 
phers who have swept their harps in praise of the won- 
ders of external creation. God's work in judgment is 
sublime and terrible, and the artist has joined with the 
prophet in defining these judgments. But higher than 
all the works of external nature, higher than all the 
works of judgment, is the work of salvation in the soul. 
The transforming of a sinner into a saint; melting 
down the rugged mountains of sin in the heart, and 
turning it into a garden of Eden, where the fruit of the 
Spirit blooms and grows, — this is a work that none can 
see or know so well as those who experience it; and 
this work is reported by the tongue of testimony. 
"The Spirit of the Lord spake by me, and his word 
was in my tongue." "My tongue shall speak of thy 
righteousness and of thy praise all the day long." 
"While I was musing the fire burned: then spake I 
with my tongue." 

The tongue of fire glorifies the blood of Jesus, and 



352 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

praises God's work on the cross above all His works in 
nature or law. It is evident that God's saving work is 
His highest work; therefore the tongue of fire has a 
theme more honoring to God then otherwise all the 
tongues of men or angels could have. 

2. The tongue of fire is related to our fellow men. 
It is the divinely ordained instrument of convincing 
them of the reality of God's work in the soul, and of 
their need of it. The most essential thing in saving 
men is to convince them to the heart that God can 
work in them salvation from sin, and show them their 
need of it ; and this is the sphere of power that is given 
to the witnessing believer. The witnessing tongue is 
God's chief method of saving the world, and nothing 
can be a substitute for it. The work of teaching, argu- 
ing, and the persuasive appeals to reason, however 
needful, can never be a substitute for the witnessing 
tongue of fire. There is a place for reasoning and the- 
ological instruction, but that is keeping on the level 
with the natural mind, and using of your human armor, 
and no amount of it of itself will make men feel in 
their hearts the divine reality of saving grace. But a 
clear, truthful testimony to an inward work of God 
is a trumpet blast to the conscience of the hearer; it 
puts you on a divine vantage ground, and they have 
no weapon to parry that sword of the Spirit. 

When we speak from the plane of our natural facul- 



TONGUES OF FIRE. 353 

ties, we are on a level with men, and they can resist 
with the same implements ; but when we are conscious 
of a divine deliverance from guilt and sin, and we 
speak out of that supernatural experience, we are 
speaking from an elevated position, we are speaking in 
the Spirit, and such testimony is the Spirit's chosen 
weapon to pierce the heart of the unsaved and lead 
them to Christ. Nor can a silent life of perfect pro- 
priety and outward decorum form a substitute for the 
witnessing tongue of fire. The cant phrase so often 
heard, that we are to live holiness and say nothing 
about it, is a lie that Satan has palmed off on a back- 
slidden Church, right in the face of hundreds of Scrip- 
tures to the contrary. A dumb Christian is a dead 
Christian. Were it possible to live a sort of angelic 
life without testimony, it would be robbing God of His 
due, and taking all the glory to self, for every one 
would credit you with making yourself angelic; and 
unless you report the miracle of grace wrought in your 
soul, how would the world know where you got your 
virtues from? Jesus said, "We speak that we do 
know, and testify that we have seen." The Pente- 
costal baptism was preeminently designed to make 
witnesses: u Ye shall receive power; ... ye shall be 
witnesses unto me." 

The word "martyr" means a witness ; and since the 
world began God's people have been persecuted and 



354 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

slain, not for living holy, but for testimony. The rea- 
son why Satan hates testimony with such perfect ha- 
tred, and the reason he stirs up the ungodly world and 
cold, carnal professors to hate it so, is because it is the 
greatest agency for tearing down his kingdom and 
spreading the salvation of Jesus. Every innuendo, 
every slur, every objection to Christian testimony, to 
relating what God has done in the heart, is either di- 
rectly or indirectly from the devil. Abel was slain 
while he talked with Cain in the field; that is, while 
he testified to salvation by faith. Christ was crucified, 
not for living holy, but because He testified He was 
the Son of God. St. John was banished to Patmos, not 
because he lived a saintly life, but "for the word of 
God, and the testimony of Jesus Christ." 

In the early days of Christianity, and in the great 
revival under Wesley, and in the modern revival of 
sanctification, it has been and is testimony to personal 
experience which has been the most powerful factor 
in spreading the kingdom of God. 

3. The tongue of fire sustains an intimate and 
essential relation with our own life and experience. 
In seeking the Lord, when the soul utters itself in 
vocal prayer it soon breaks the chains that bind it. 
The soul is so constituted that it needs to express 
itself in speech. Testifying to our experience wonder- 
fully strengthens and girds the soul, by publicly com- 



TONGUES OF FIRE. 355 

mitting us to the truth we have espoused. It is the 
means by which we cut the shore lines, and launch 
boldly upon a life of faith ; it develops moral verte- 
brae, and enables us to take a firm stand, which is a 
wonderful factor in religion. Trying to live an experi- 
ence which we are not willing to confess is the very 
essence of moral cowardice; it destroys the spinal 
column of the soul ; it makes us timid, easily fright- 
ened, excessively conservative, and turns us into 
miserable jelly-fish sort of Christians, which is the 
very cause of the modern Church producing a mass 
of soft, vague sentimentalism, instead of the sturdy 
Christianity of the Pentecost. For our own self-pres- 
ervation we need to run our flag to the masthead, 
take a bold stand, and by our testimony commit our- 
selves thoroughly to Scriptural holiness, with all its 
concomitants. 

Again, by a clear, definite testimony we please God, 
and receive in return from Him wonderful effusions 
of His Spirit. The Holy Ghost is ever poured upon 
the brave and true witness. In multitudes of cases be- 
lievers have stepped out by naked faith on the promise 
for cleansing, and while testifying to their faith, have 
been filled unutterably with the Spirit of God. Furth- 
ermore, it is true that testimony in some form or other 
constitutes the larger part of Christian life. The stale 
adage of " living it" without talking it, is an absolute 



356 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

contradiction. The greater part of every life is in the 
speech. How do we know anger or gentleness, ben- 
evolence or hatred, piety or wickedness, except through 
the tongue ? Persons often say they were led to Christ 
by some pious mother or friend, not so much by what 
they talked as by what they lived ; but such persons do 
not speak accurately. How could they have felt a 
mother's kindness or love except through the mother's 
words and tones of the voice ? If Christians were 
dumb, how could their meek and patient tempers be 
distinguished from the tempers of the oxen or dumb 
brutes around us ? So far as the mere living of holiness 
is concerned, apart from all intelligent expression in 
language, we might say that the cows in the pasture live 
as holy as any saints. To repudiate Christian testimony 
is to do away with the largest part of the soul's life, so 
far as the expression of that life is concerned. 

Finally, Christian testimony is the natural ventilator 
of the heart. It prevents the fires of holy love from 
choking. The heart is so constituted that its affections 
are maintained and enlarged by being expressed. Just 
as a fire will die unless it has a draught of air passing 
through it, so the fire of grace in the heart will die 
unless ventilated in speech. The thoughts in the mind 
are never perfect until shaped in some form of expres- 
sion. This great law is understood by poets, philoso- 
phers, and artists. What a calamity to the Christian 



TONGUES OF FIRE. 357 

world that the professed children of light are not as 
wise in their generation as the children of this world ! 
How many thousands have lost the experience of heart 
purity by failing to give God the glory in definite tes- 
timony to His work? "With the heart man believeth 
unto righteousness [or holiness] and with the mouth 
confession is made unto salvation." 

The heart and tongue are so intimately connected, 
that the faith of the one and the testimony of the other 
are like the two wings to a bird ; deprived of either, the 
soul beats itself helplessly against the ground, unable 
to rise into those broad, bright regions which God has so 
amply provided for its freedom and flight. He who 
attempts to testify with his mouth what is not in the 
heart, will be but a sounding brass and tinkling cym- 
bal, and he who attempts to live in the heart what he 
refuses to confess with his mouth will soon have noth- 
ing to live. 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

WHITER THAN SNOW. 

I ASK your attention to two verses: Isa. 1: 18, — 
"Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as 
white as snow"; and Ps. 51: 7, — "Wash me, and I 
shall be whiter than snow." Now can you, dear friends, 
see any difference between those two verses? In the 
verse in Isaiah the backsliding Church is invited back 
to God, and though their sins that they had committed 
were like crimson or scarlet they should be washed 
away, and the backslider that was restored to God's 
favor should "be as white as snow" when it first falls 
from heaven. A great many persons think that is sanc- 
tification, entire Christian purity, but it is only what 
God does when He forgives the sins. "When God 
washes all one's sins away in conversion the soul is 
made "as white as snow." 

In the other verse David is referring to the cleansing 
of the heart from original sin, because in that Psalm he 
says, "Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did 
my mother conceive me. # Behold, thou desirest truth 
in the inward parts . and in the. hidden part " — where 



WHITER THAN SNOW. 359 

the world cannot see, and the Church cannot see, and 
my neighbors cannot see — "thou shalt make me to 
know wisdom. Purge me with hyssop," — that is, 
purge me in the hidden part, — "and I shall be clean: 
wash me," — from this depravity which has come down 
the ages, — "and I shall be whiter than snow." Now, 
you see, it is in the Bible. I did not make the Bible, I 
just preach it; the Lord has not sent me to make Scrip- 
ture, but to preach the Scripture He made. The verse 
in Isaiah refers to actual sin, and the other refers to 
original depravity. So here, friends, the Holy Ghost 
has given us a picture of experimental salvation in the 
emblem of the snowflake, and all you have to do to see 
it is to take a snowflake and simply analyze it. You 
will find in the analogy between a snowflake and the 
human heart, a most perfect parallel of experimental 
salvation from sin. Now let us thoughtfully trace out 
this comparison. 

The snowflake when it first comes down from the 
clouds, so far as you can see, is perfectly pure ; and yet, 
there are elements of earthliness wrapped up in the 
bosom of every snowflake that falls upon the earth. 
Hidden away in the internal mechanism, or concealed in 
the very structure of every snowflake, there are bits of 
dirt. Do you know that is a perfect picture of the 
human heart? When you^and I were born into this 
world, we had no sins upon us, no actual sin ; we were 



360 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

perfectly innocent, and, so far as the law was concerned, 
we were white and clean. But there was in our very 
nature the principle of corruption and of impurity. I 
am going to introduce a man to-night, and let him preach 
a little sermon for us, who is not supposed to be an 
advocate of Christian holiness. He is a learned man, 
whom England and America both delight to honor. 
Although he is not a holiness man, yet he has preached 
us a very good sermon on sanctification. I refer to 
Professor Tyndall, the great scientist. You will find 
that Professor Tyndall has said just exactly about a 
snowflake what God says about your heart ; while he 
preaches from the standard of science, the Bible 
preaches the standard of God, and just what the one 
says corresponds with the other. Some years ago, Mr. 
Tyndall came to America and gave a series of beautiful 
lectures on science, — charmed thousands and thousands 
of our people, and his books are greatly read. He said 
that he had been up the Alps and taken snow from the 
top of the mountain to see if he could find any that 
was entirely free from dirt. He got it where he sup- 
posed it would be perfectly pure. But when he put it 
under his binocular microscope, which magnifies several 
thousand diameters, he found to his amazement bits of 
steel filings, possibly from Sheffield, and bits of coal 
dust, possibly from Manchester. These had gone up in 
the air. Millions and millions of- particles of dirt and 



WHITER THAN SNOW. 361 

coal and soot and iron and steel shavings, so fine that 
they could be borne on the breeze, had been mingled up 
in the clouds, and when these snowflakes were formed 
away up in the clouds, these infinitesimal bits of iron 
and steel and lead and coal and soot, were wrapped 
up in them ; and when the snowflakes fell on the top of 
the Alps, Mr. Tyndall discovered the bits of steel 
filings, etc. 

Now, that just exactly illustrates our hearts. Away 
back in the beginning of the world's history Satan came 
out from the regions of darkness, and he blew a pesti- 
lential breath into the heart of Adam ; and (if I may 
use a phrase that is more powerful and true than 
elegant) just as the iron dust and the coal dust has 
been mixed up with all the particles of snow, the devil 
has turned loose a devil dust that has got mixed up 
with every human heart born into this world, and when 
you and I, as little infants, dropped down from the 
cloud of humanity, we brought with us the devil dust 
in our hearts. We brought in us the germs of selfish- 
ness, passion, and evil desire, anger, resentment, pride. 
Every sin that is in the world to-night, was once only 
but a little germ of evil in human hearts. The reason 
why so many people do not see the need of heart 
cleansing is that they do not understand the real nature 
of original sin. The popular preachers of this day 
never say much about sin. The human heart is over- 



362 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

looked, and people, somehow, think that religion 
consists in doing right merely on the outside, and that 
if people get their outward sins washed away, the great 
mass of them think there is nothing more than that. 
Well, my dear friends, just as you and I have brought 
into this world the principle of depravity, we need the 
principle of inward purity to take its place. 

The next thought in this comparison is, that this dirt 
that is in the snowflake can never be discovered except 
by a microscope. You may take the snowflake on the 
point of a needle, and hold it between you and the sun, 
and you may not be able to see any dirt in it. But 
when you place it under the microscope, you will see a 
bit of coal dust that looks as large as your hand. Your 
eyes alone could not see it, but the microscope reveals 
it. Do you know that illustrates our hearts ? A great 
many people have a way of looking at their hearts 
simply in the light of reason, simply with their own 
eyes, with the eyes of nature, and they say, " Why, I 
do not see anything so bad ; I do not see anything so 
wrong." But if you will take God's Word, which is 
God's microscope, and pass your heart under it, you 
will be perfectly amazed to find the sin, the corruption, 
that is hidden away there. To your eyes it was all 
right, but under the Word of God you will find the 
need of cleansing. 

Do you know there is a vast amount of sentiment- 



WHITER THAN SNOW. 363 

alism among Christians? A great many people say 
when infants die they go to heaven because they are So 
innocent. But that is all mere sentimentalism. No 
infant ever goes to heaven because he is innocent, 
because, if innocence would take a child to heaven, 
why could not the birds go there ? They are innocent ! 
No, my friends, when infants die, they enter heaven 
because they have been purified under the covenant of 
Jesus Christ. He made a covenant with the Father 
that He would sanctify all except those that rejected 
Him. Now, some man out there says, "Well, infants 
do not believe." I answer, they do not disbelieve, they 
do not reject Jesus, and everybody on earth will be 
saved in glory except the man that turns away from 
the blood of Christ. And so infants go to heaven not 
because they are innocent, but because under the 
covenant the Lord Jesus Christ purines their hearts. 

A young convert is not aware that he has in his 
heart the germs of inbred sin. He looks at himself 
simply in what light he has, and has not yet learned to 
discover the great deep of his heart. ' Sometimes a 
young convert may go a week, sometimes a month ; and 
I once met a young lady who said from the moment 
God forgave her sins, for one whole year she never 
felt the least motion of inbred sin, and she supposed, 
of course, that she had got pardon and entire cleansing 
at one time ; but after twelve months of uninterrupted 



S64 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

sunshine and bliss, she found that suddenly, one day, 
something arose in her heart, and she was mortified, 
and went and sought the blessing of sanctification. 
Now there are a great many persons who somehow do 
not see the need of sanctification ; they say, " I go to 
these holiness meetings, and I hear this sanctification 
taught, and, so far as I see, I have got it, but I got all in 
conversion." Are you sure you have a clean heart? 
" O, I am sure I have what you are talking about. I 
love His Word, and I truly serve God." Yes, all 
converted persons do that; but do you not have anger, 
pride, resentment, rising in your heart? "O yes," 
you say; "if you come down to those small things, 
why, of course, I have them, but that is my human 
nature; everybody has that." O, I say, that is your 
devil nature. Perhaps you say, " Well, I don't swear." 
But don't you feel like it sometimes? My friends, you 
will find that a great many people do not seem to know 
what heart purity is, but your heart never can be fixed 
in God until you are sure this work has been wrought 
in you. 

Then again, sometimes there are Christians who have 
been serving God for many years, who say, " Well, I 
don't believe I have got any inbred sin; I believe I 
have got all the religion I can have until I come to 
die," and they do not feel the need of a clean heart. 
They remind me of an old Spanish coin that I read of 



WHITER THAN SNOW. 365 

some years ago. It was worn so smooth that you could 
find neither image nor letters upon it; but they put 
that old coin in the fire, and when the fire began to 
melt it, the picture of the old king and all the letters 
that were stamped on it, two hundred years before, 
came out. So of a great many Christians; they have 
been going along in one rut until they are worn kind of 
smooth, and they say, " I don't think I need any special 
work of holiness; I don't need heart cleansing." Bat 
let them get into sorrow or tribulation, let God put 
them in a hot furnace, and just about the time the fire 
begins to melt them they will find there will come out 
on their soul the image of old Adam, the very old 
man they did not know they had. The very old things 
that they thought had been worn off by gradual growth 
they find coming right out, and they see they need 
entire cleansing. Adam heard the Lord God walking 
in the garden, and hid himself. That is what a great 
many Christians do. They are afraid to meet God. 
They don't want to pray, they don't want to speak, 
they don't want to bear responsibility, and they don't 
want to go and work for Christ, and so they are 
dodging and shirking. Then again, Adam laid the 
blame on his wife; and if you lay the blame on your 
wife or any one else, that is just what Adam did. A 
great many people are acting just like old Adam. 
Why? Because they have got the old Adam in them, 



366 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

and Adam will always be true to his nature. Just as 
gunpoivder will always behave like gunpowder, whether 
it is a handful or a barrelful, so Adam will always 
behave like Adam. If you have in you an unclean 
heart, you may rest assured that some time that heart 
will show itself. Oh, put your heart under the thirteenth 
chapter of First Corinthians, put your heart under 
Christ's Sermon on the Mount, put your heart under 
God's wonderful promises, and see how the Word will 
show you the need of cleansing! Though you be a 
young convert, though you be a happy, jubilant 
Christian, you may find the need there of a deeper 
work of grace. 

The next point is that the dirt that Mr. Tyndall 
found in the snowflake, he says did not properly 
belong there, and he says the snowflake would be a 
great deal better if the dirt were out. Mr. Tyndall did 
not know he was preaching sanctiflcation scientifically, 
but he was. We find, under the microscope of God's 
Word, that the depraved nature is within us, but we 
find it does not properly belong there, and we would be 
a great deal better if it were out. Now, the doctrine 
has gone all over this land that original sin must be 
covered over and not cleansed away. There is a class 
of teachers in England, — we have got some in 
America, — if they took this text, instead of preaching 
from it the way I am, they would say that God never 



WHITER THAN SNOW. 367 

purges the heart, never does what David prayed for 
when he cried out, "Wash me, and I shall be whiter 
than snow." They teach that God simply covers 
depravity with a white mantle and hides it, so that 
when He looks at man He cannot see his depravity, 
but only the white mantle that is flung over him. 

There are people who say we cannot get along 
without sin ; but I get along a great deal better without 
sin than I did with it. Suppose you go to a man that 
never has had a headache for ten years, and say, " Mr. 

, how in the world can you get along without 

having a headache?" "O, I get along a great deal 
better without the headache." Go to a poor soul 
that once had a cancer, and who has been cured, and 
ask, "How in the world can you get along without 
a cancer?" and he would say he got along a great deal 
better without it. Well, inbred sin is spiritual head- 
ache and spiritual cancer, and it does not belong to 
human nature. A minister once asked me, "Do you 
know you are preaching the destruction of human 
nature ? " I said, " No, I am simply preaching the 
destruction of the sin out of human nature." Now, 
sin does not belong to human nature. We tell men 
oftentimes, and we mean to keep on telling them, that 
when God sanctifies the human soul He can and does 
destroy sin and all depraved appetites. 

Borne man says, "Do you mean to say that God 



368 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

destroys all a man's appetites ? " No, God destroys all 
the appetites that the de^il made. God made all the 
natural functions and appetites of the body, and the 
powers of the mind, and everything that legitimately 
belongs to man. Divine grace does not destroy these, 
but all the miserable excrescences and all the unholy 
things that were foisted upon us by the devil. As 
Professor Tyndail says of the snowflake, the impurities 
are in it, but they do not belong there, and the snow- 
flake would be better without them, so evil is in man, 
but it don't belong there, and he would be a great deal 
better without it ; a man would be a better husband, a 
child a better child, with a pure heart, than with an 
impure one ; and whatever your work is, you can live in 
the sight of God a great deal better when all the work 
of the devil in you has been destroyed. Sin does not 
belong to human nature ; it is brought in by the devil. 
Sin is a disease and a malady. O brothers and sis- 
ters, let me say, the heart never reaches its true state 
until there is entire cleansing, and a sweet, full resting 
in God. 

The last point is : How are you going to get the dirt 
out of the snowflakes? Here comes Professor Tyn- 
dail with his snow, and he calls on people to get the 
snow purified. A blustering man, with a great deal of 
braggadocio, says, " Dr. Tyndail, I believe in doing 
things by force ; I believe in coercion ; I believe in will 



WHITER THAN SNOW. 369 

power; and I think if you would just beat and hammer 
the snow, and then resolve that you are going to make 
it pure, you can make it pure." And he hammers it ; ' 
he ruins the snow, and has only the dirt left. You 
know a great many say, " I believe in being holy, 
but I believe in using my will power," and so they 
say, " Now I am resolved I won't get angry any 
more "; and they put on the pressure, and they screw 
themselves up to a wonderful tension. They believe 
in coercing themselves ; but they find out in doing that 
they have simply exhausted their own powers, and have 
as much depravity on hand as they had when they 
began. Another man steps forward and says, " Dr. 
Tyndall, I think I can make the snow pure : I believe 
in growth; I believe in development; and I think if 
you will just make the snow grow larger and larger, 
that by and by, somehow, it will get pure." That is 
the way a great many of you are trying to get a clean 
heart ; you are trying to grow and get larger and 
larger, and somewhere, you don't know where, and 
sometime, you don't know when, you will acci- 
dentally be cleansed. So this man says, " Take the 
snow and make it grow." So he takes the snowflake 
and puts ten thousand others to it, but the more 
snow he gets on hand the more dirt he has got. Oh, 
you Christian people have got the law of growth 
confounded with the law of cleansing ! But here is 



370 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

a quiet man, the greatest chemist England ever 
produced — Mr. Faraday ; he says, in a quiet way, 
" Dr. Tyndall, I think I can make the snow pure.'' 
" Well, you try it." So Faraday comes up with a little 
glass retort with a tube to it, and a spirit lamp under 
it with some alcohol in it, and he puts fire to the 
alcohol and turns in a handful of snow, and does 
not say one word ; he uses no hammer, makes no 
noise, but simply puts fire under it ; and by and by 
the vessel gets hot, and the snow begins to melt, 
and if the snowflakes could only talk they would say, 
" O Professor, you are going to ruin us ! Look 
at these fine fringes ! look at these fine crystals ! " 
You know a snowflake is a wonderfully beautiful 
thing. There is no flower you ever saw that has 
such fine leaves as a snowflake has. The snow says, 
" You are ruining us ! we are melting away ! O sir, 
you are ruining us ! " But Faraday does not say a 
single word ; he just lets the fire burn away, and so 
the snowflakes begin to melt. By and by it is per- 
fectly melted, and then boiled, and then evaporated, 
and then the snow is over there in that glass, perfectly 
spotless, and all the microscopes in the world could 
not find a bit of dirt in it. The dirt is all left behind. 
That is the way God will sanctify you. After 
you have tried growth, and tried this and that and 
the other process, by and by you come to Jesus, 



WHITER THAN SNOW. 371 

the great Chemist, and say, "O Lord, make me holy!" 
Then Jesus comes to your heart quietly, but with 
power, and puts fire on you. He doesn't hammer 
yon. He doesn't begin to scold or fret you, or whip 
or spur you. He doesn't begin to reprimand } r ou, or 
tell you how mean you are. He doesn't say a hard 
word, and He doesn't make a noise. But He puts 
fire on you ; and when God begins to melt you down, 
you feel like those snowflakes. " Oh," you say, " I 
don't know what in the world is becoming of me ! It 
seems to me I am getting in a vile state "; and you 
feel the Lord is shaking you all to pieces. Then you 
will find, down will go your glory, your majesty, your 
grandeur, your plans, and your pet notions ; down 
will go your idols and your self-conceit ; you will feel 
that God is making you so small you can hardly find 
yourself, and you wonder what the Lord is doing with 
you. God is simply melting you down. O brother, 
do you know that by nature our hearts are hard ? Do 
you know by nature there is a great deal of iron and 
rock in our hearts, and God has to break us all to 
pieces ? He has to melt us and melt us, until we feel 
that all our wisdom and knowledge and learning 
and skill, everything we have, has gone to pieces, and 
we are just as little nobodies, and we just dissolve and 
dissolve ; and when we wake up we find somehow the 
burden is gone, the fretting, the anger, the bad temper, 



372 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

the jealousy, the uprisings, all are gone ; and when God 
gets through our heart is clean, and all depravity is 
washed away. God has removed it without the sound 
of a hammer, without any coercion, simply by the fire 
of the Holy Spirit ; Isaiah says, "As when a melting 
fire burnetii. " This is the way God purges our hearts, 
by holy fire. Jesus can cast out the depravity, and you 
will know, dear brother, dear sister, that your heart 
is "ivhiter than snow." Don't you want this experi- 
ence ? Oh, there are fifty people in this house who 
ought to say, " I know I love God, I know I do 
serve Him the best I can, but I have had something 
within me that bothers me ! " We want you to come 
to Jesus, and we want you to submit to Him, and just 
let Jesus put His living fire upon your soul and cleanse 
away the inbred sin. And if there are any uncon- 
verted persons, we want you to come and have all 
your sins washed away, and become children of God. 
How many are there in this company who are sure 
that the Lord has sanctified their hearts ? Stand up, 
friends, now. You say God has done this in your 
hearts ; you testify before the angels and men that 
Jesus has purified your hearts. And how many are 
there who desire this experience ? O you dear Chris- 
tian people who know you have been pardoned, but 
feel somehow you want another work of grace, if you 
desire this perfect heart, stand up. Amen, 



CHAPTER XXV. 

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS. 

QUESTION. Please tell me how we may know that 
we have the Holy Spirit abiding in ns. 

Answer. There are two ways in which we may 
know that we have the abiding Spirit. The first way 
in which we know it is by the "witness of the Spirit" 
Himself. 

The Holy Spirit, when He comes to fill us, bears wit- 
ness with our spirit that He fills us. He doesn't per- 
haps say, "I fill you"; but when He fills the heart, 
when the heart is cleansed and the Holy Ghost bears 
witness to it, there is a conviction in the soul which is 
not in words, perhaps, but it is a conviction: "This is 
the Holy Spirit, this is the Comforter, this is the pres- 
ence of God, this is full, salvation." It seemed to me 
the day I received the baptism of the Holy Spirit that 
there was a voice in my breast saying, "This is the 
Holy Ghost"; no uttered word, but it seemed to me 
there was the mental word — that it shaped itself in my 
mind. St. John says, "We know that God dwells in 
us and we dwell in him by the Spirit which he hath 
given unto us." 



374 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

There is another way you may know it, and that is 
by faith. If we are conscious that we are not resisting 
God, if we are conscious that we are obeying the Lord, 
if we are conscious that we are in harmony with the 
divine will, that we have no resistance to God, we are 
on ground where it is perfectly clear and legitimate for 
us to believe that the Spirit abides in us ; and when the 
demonstration and the overflowing of spiritual feeling 
subsides, we are to fall back on this great bed-rock prin- 
ciple of faith, "That Christ may dwell in your hearts 
by faith." That is Scriptural. " How did you receive 
the Spirit," says Paul, "by the works of the law, or by 
the hearing of faith?" Not by works but b} r faith. 
And so we are taught through the Scriptures that we 
retain the presence of God by faith. I remarked the 
other day in a meeting that one of the best ways in 
which to realize that the spirit of faith is within us, is 
to recognize His presence. If we recognize the fact, 
God is in my soul, the Holy Ghost is in my soul, 
the very fact that we recognize that presence will cause 
us to feel that presence. If you doubt that the Holy 
Ghost is in your heart you cannot expect to feel any- 
thing. But if thou dost believe in thine heart that the 
Jesus who was raised from the dead has baptized you 
with the Holy Ghost, you recognize that fact — and you 
will realize it by believing it. 

How do we feel God's love in our hearts? St. John 



QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS, 375 

tells us, by believing "the love God hath to us." And 
I can get happy any time I please, day or night, by 
just lifting up my mind and recollecting, " Lord, I be- 
lieve you love me." John gives us the key. We are 
to believe the love that God hath to us, and when we 
believe that love, we feel it. Keep yourselves in the 
love of God by building yourselves up in your most 
holy faith. You take away the faith and the love will 
leak out. So I say there are two ways, by the direct 
witness of the Spirit and then by faith. 

Question. Is it possible for one to believe without 
any corresponding reality? 

Answer. It is impossible to have genuine faith 
without a corresponding realit}^, but the reality may 
not at first be very pronounced; there may not be a 
wonderful demonstration of it. 

Question. I want a pure heart, and I desire it now. 
Tell me how to get it, and ask all to pray that I may so 
believe as to receive it. 

Answer. Well, I will tell you how I got it. I was 
praying for three months for a clean heart. One Fri- 
day night, on the second day of December, 1876, when 
the family had all retired, I remained awake and 
prayed until midnight. When I retired it seemed to 
me as if my whole being broke down and I wept like a 
child. The Holy Spirit would suggest certain things 
to me. "Will you preach this?" — "Yes, Lord." — 



376 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

"Will you let me sanctify you?" — "Yes, Lord." — 
"Will you resign your wife and your children into 
my hands, and let me have them and their life just 
as I see fit? " — " Yes, Lord." — " Will you resign your 
health to me and your natural life as to how long you 
will live and when you die?" — "Yes, Lord."— "Will 
you die any time I want you to die, — at home or 
abroad, on a train of cars or a steamboat? will you 
just die when I say I want you to die?" — "Yes, 
Lord." (God had been three months getting me 
there.) "Will you preach this in your pulpit?" (I 
had the finest church in Indiana, a Baptist church.) 
"Yes, Lord." — "Will you go down to the preachers' 
meeting and confess this to the preachers there?" — 
"Yes, Lord." — "Will you consent to give up these 
fine appointments, if need be, and take some poor 
appointments ? " — " Yes, Lord." — " Suppose I want 
you to go down South to work among the colored 
people, will you go?" — "Yes, Lord: anything, any- 
thing!" — "Will you quit smoking your cigar, give 
up your tobacco?" — " Yes, Lord, anything." 

God riddled me with questions, more than the 
pine trees in the Battle of the Wilderness with bul- 
lets and grapeshot. When I had said "yes" to every 
single question, I just felt like a tired person that is 
climbing a mountain, and just has strength enough to 
get to the top and fall down. I. had strength enough 



QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS. 377 

to answer "yes," and fell down and went to sleep. 
Next morning I woke up and found that the taste for 
tobacco was gone. I found that I was calm and serene. 
I didn't know I was sanctified yet, though. I went 
out and visited a sick lady. I went to preach the fu- 
neral sermon of a child. I came back to the church 
where a prayer meeting was going on, conducted by 
laymen, and in that prayer meeting I was so. eager 
and hungry! I had gone through all the hard tug, 
just about as you have; just needed now to pull the 
trigger and fire the gun off. I opened my Bible and 
I saw these words : " Cry unto her, that her warfare is 
accomplished." "Thank the Lord!" I said. "For she 
hath received of the Lord's hand double for all her 
sins." "Thank the Lord!" I said, "I will take it." 
I arose and said, "Brethren, I am going to say some- 
thing you have never heard me say in this church." 
Then I went on and told about my consecration. " I am 
going to believe that the blood of Christ cleanses me 
from all sin. I am going to believe it, and I do believe 
it, and now I confess it." I sat down, and I had no 
more feeling than that pine board has, only I felt per- 
fectly careless and calm and serene and quiet. And 
that is all that I expected. I never expected anything 
beyond that. But on Monday morning, while I was 
reading my Bible, the Lord gave me a baptism of the 
Holy Spirit. 



378 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

Now, I suppose I got a clean heart just at the point 
where I said, "Lord, I accept it!" Brother, if you are 
conscious that you can say "yes" to God when He 
goes round your soul and touches every spot, then you 
can go right back to the hub of your nature and say, 
" Lord, I will believe, and leave the results with Thee." 
I tell you, friends, if you want to get a clean heart you 
have got to fling the responsibility on God: "Here, 
Lord, I am going to believe it, claim it, and profess it, 
and if the thing is a failure you are to blame for it." 
God loves to have people put responsibility on Him. 
That is faith. 

Question. What is meant in the Scriptures by " the 
wiles of the devil " ? 

Answer. Christian people, and sanctified people 
especially, are exhorted to put on the whole armor of 
God that they may withstand the wiles of the devil. 
The Greek word sa}^s " methods." Did you know 
that the devil was a Methodist? Well, the devil is a 
Methodist. And did you know one thing else? It 
takes a sanctified Methodist to outwit the devil's meth- 
ods. It takes a Methodist to fight a Methodist. The 
Greek word is "methods": and they named the 
Methodists so because they were so methodical. They 
had a method in getting people converted and a 
method in getting sanctified and a method in raising 
money and a method in this and that. Here the 



QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS. 379 

Greek word is " methods ": put on the whole armor 
of God that ye may withstand the methods of the 
devil. 

Satanic agency is a subject that is hardly ever taught 
in the Christian Church of to-day ; the personality of 
the devil, the genius and ability and spirit of the devil, 
the wiles, the methods, and art of the devil, are not 
brought out. Many persons think it is such a realm 
of imagination or fiction that Christian people are 
afraid to venture out there. I deny that. The Bible 
reveals to us everything about the devil — reveals his 
personality, his ability, his rank, his influence, his 
subordinates, and his plans. It is in the Scriptures. 

I will now tell you some of the devil's methods. I 
just wish all the sanctified people who ever professed 
holiness could learn these lessons. Before we are 
sanctified the method of the devil is to work on Chris- 
tian people through their carnal mind, without letting 
them know it is the devil. He will come to Christian 
men, to Christian women, Christian ministers, good 
people who are endeavoring to serve God and are on 
the way to heaven ; he will work his plans and pur- 
poses upon them by using their carnal mind, and so 
work that they think it is their wisdom. The devil 
will come to an unsanctified Christian who is con- 
verted and will put a certain idea into his mind or 
heart, and he will say, " Now, isn't that wise, isn't that 



380 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

prudent, isn't that cautious ? " Thus he will work on 
their prudential motives, on their reason, and on their 
carnal fears. He will work on their man-fearing spirit. 
He will work on their worldly policy and their worldly 
wisdom, making a playground upon their carnal mind. 

Now, mark you, he has no possession of God's chil- 
dren, but he will annoy them and disturb them and 
hinder them. They are doing ten thousand things in 
which they do not dream they are doing the devil's 
work. The devil goes to Christian people and gets 
them to have a church theatrical. He wouldn't dare 
have tbem start a regular theater with all the accesso- 
ries, but he goes and works on their worldly policy 
and their worldly mind, so that when they have got 
these things up, church members do not know they are 
doing the devil's work. They say, "We are doing 
this to raise money for our church. It is laudable." 
They think they are right. They simply are doing 
the devil's work by the devil's suggestions, only the 
devil is hiding himself and laughing at them all the 
while. The devil is sharp. He can get people to serve 
him in the guise of piety. That is a trick of the devil. 

If he wants to discourage you, his method is either 
to work on your carnal mind by puffing you up so you 
get the " big head " and capsize, or by discouraging you 
so as to get you down in the mud and you think God 
isn't your Friend and you can't serve Him anyhow. 



QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS. 381 

It is the method of the devil to run people to extremes. 
Another of his methods is to make you serve him 
under the guise of being pious. That is the motto of 
the Romish Church : the end justifies the means. You 
can commit any crime out of hell, providing you do 
it for the sake of the Virgin Mary. Another method 
is to make you think that sanctifi cation is so high that 
you never can get to it, or else it is so low and com- 
monplace it isn't worth seeking after. If you are 
sanctified by imputed righteousness, it is such a low 
thing it isn't worth struggling for. The other is that 
if you are sanctified, you must be so spotless, holy, 
and wise, and perfect in everything, just like an angel, 
and it is so high you can't have it. Either to dis- 
courage or to puff up : these are his methods of working 
upon the carnal mind. 

After you are sanctified, the devil comes up to you 
and hunts all around and says, "Where is my instru- 
ment gone? I could run my fingers over the carnal 
mind and play a tune in this man's soul." He finds 
no wire in your soul to pull on now. He used to pull 
on your judgment and reason and carnal nature ; but 
that is all gone, and he finds nothing but Christ. 

When the devil finds out he has no territory in you, 
he gets mad, flings off his cloak, and begins to blas- 
pheme. He will say, "You have professed holiness 
and you know you haven't it!" You never know how 



382 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

plainly the devil can talk to you until you are sancti- 
fied. Before, he could run into the back door of your 
heart and pull the wires ; but after you are sanctified 
the devil has got to fight you on the outside. He will 
come to your face and tell you you are not sanctified 
and you know it! He will threaten you with falling. 
He will talk to you intellectually, and pronounce 
words in your mind. 

There is a difference between fighting the enemies 
in the wilderness and fighting them in the land. 
When you get into the land of Canaan you have to 
fight ironclad devils, giants, and it is a hand-to-hand 
war, an open warfare. 

Another trick of the devil is to get sanctified people 
where they are led by impressions. Some are fright- 
ened right off and go down ; but if the devil finds he 
cannot scare you and cannot make you stop testifying, 
then he will go round and attack you on the other 
side. I don't know whether you folks will believe 
what I am going to tell you, but it is the truth. The 
devil can make people feel tremendously happy. I have 
learned a great deal in the past fifteen years of the 
experiences of people. He can produce a fictitious 
happiness, and he will make you feel so with special 
reference to getting you where you live on impressions, 
and at that very minute the devil has all he wants. 
Then he puts on his Sunday clothes and turns himself 
into an angel of light. 



QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS. 383 

People, even Christian people, do not believe Scrip- 
tures at this point. I have seen people so deluded 
by the devil, and I have said, " Don't you know the 
devil can turn himself into an angel of light?" u Oh, 
yes," they say, " but the devil isn't leading me ! If 
God tells me to do so, I will do it," they say. Again he 
says, " I am the Holy Ghost." And you cannot detect 
him unless God helps you. He will begin by making 
you do something that is very nice for God. For in- 
stance, he will make you pray, but he will make you 
pray in the wrong way and at the wrong time. He 
will tell you to do a great many things, but he will 
always tell you or impress yon to do these things in a 
queer way, outlandish or unnatural way. He says to 
one sister, when the child is crying and the bread 
about to burn, "Now the Holy Ghost says you must 
go and pray an hour; let the baby cry, and the coffee- 
pot boil over." I know these are facts. And the 
person goes off as sincere as an angel and kneels down 
and prays, and the baby may get scalded to death. 

God the Holy Ghost, in all His leadings, never leads 
people in an abnormal way or in an unnatural or a 
strained way. God doesn't strain you ; He doesn't 
put the thumbscrew on you and strain your muscles 
until they crack and snap ; but the devil does. 

A person goes to meeting and says, " The Lord 
sent me here to-clay with a special message." It may 



384 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

be time for the meeting to close, but he thinks he has 
a special message from the Lord and he must tell it, 
though everybody else thinks it is time to go home. 
Those people insist that the Holy Ghost sent them. 
Now, it is nothing in the world but the devil. Why? 
Because the devil has got them on that road, going by 
impressions, going the way you feel. One man says, 
" God has sanctified me and I want to prove to you 
that I am a holy man, and the Holy Ghost tells me to 
go down to the door and have you walk over my 
body." I am giving you facts ; all these things 
occurred. And they walked out the door over Iris 
body to prove he was holy. 

The devil knows he cannot make us lie or steal or 
do any of these things, but he is trying to make you do 
pious things in a most outlandish and most unnatural 
and most abnormal way. I tell you, there is a tremen- 
dous amount of that work done. People think they are 
led by the Holy Ghost, and they are led by the devil 
as an angel of light. 

You can recognize these people. In their prayers, in 
their talks, in their sermons, in their efforts, there is 
always a sense of strangeness. They seem to be op- 
pressed, to be burdened ; they seem to be unnatural. 
There is not tranquillity or frankness. The devil is a 
hard master. 

Another trick of the devil is the gift of the Holy 



QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS. 385 

Ghost. The devil knows that the Holy Ghost is our 
Leader. Jesus has gone to heaven. We have got the 
written Word, but the Holy Ghost must explain to us 
the Word of God and reveal to us Jesus. And if the 
devil can only imitate the Holy Ghost, that is his strong 
forte among the Christian people. Among his own 
people he talks his own language. The devil doesn't 
work among sinners as he does among saints. He has 
one method of work among sinners and another for 
converted people and another for sanctified people, 
and in the higher ranges of Christian life it is to imitate 
the Holy Spirit. 

Another method of the devil is to imitate the Holy 
Spirit by giving people fictitious calls, fictitious beliefs, 
giving them dreams. The devil can make impressions 
and produce artificial happiness and artificial joy in 
order to switch the soul off. Of course, after he gets 
a soul off he will then make him do something more 
and more absurd, and by and by make him commit some 
sin ; but he always begins delicately and tenderly. If a 
person is perfectly true to God, although the Lord God 
may allow him to be annoyed and sometimes hindered 
by Satan, I cannot see but what God will see that his 
soul is delivered from the devil's power. 

You can detect the devil by one or two things. The 
devil always talks loud. Jesus always talks low and 
tender. I'm talking Greek unless you have ears to 



386 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

hear. " He that hath ears to hear, let him hear." 
When a spirit makes an impression upon my mind, that 
impression can be made in a loud, boisterous, rushing, 
pellmell sort of way, or that conviction can come gently 
and quietly and sweetly. When the devil makes an 
impression on people's hearts and when he speaks to the 
soul, he talks loudly. I mean to say that the impres- 
sion has a loudness in the mind. I am talking men- 
tally now. The devil wants you to rush and be in a 
hurry and go pellmell and not wait for anything; 
whereas Jesus is always quiet and He is calm and always 
takes His time. Sometimes in business matters the 
devil makes us think we have got to rush and transact 
a piece of business without taking time to pray. But 
when you take things to God in prayer and you wait, 
if God makes an impression on the mind, it always 
comes gently, tenderly. You wait on and it will come 
again, gently, tenderly. The more you wait on God, 
if the conviction comes from the Holy Ghost, the more 
you wait and the more you pray, the stronger it be- 
comes. If it comes from the devil, the more you wait 
and the more you pray the weaker it grows. You can 
tell by that. If you have a call to some mission work 
or anything, and you say, "I wish I did know whether it 
were God or Satan," jowjust take time. If the world 
is on fire and your house half burned down, you take 
time and wait on God. 



QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS. 387 

Question. By that you admit that there may be im- 
pressions from the Holy Ghost ? You wouldn't leave 
the idea that no person could trust an impression ? 

Answer. The Holy Ghost makes the strongest im- 
pressions and the best impressions. But there is this 
difference : the Holy Ghost impresses us upon the 
conscience and upon the spiritual nature ; Satan makes 
his impressions upon our own human feelings mostly. 
God does not allow the devil to get at the secret cham- 
bers of a sanctified heart. The Holy Ghost makes im- 
pressions. He produces convictions, but the convic- 
tions of the Holy Spirit come in harmony with the 
Word of God and with divine providence. There is a 
depth to them ; there is a solemnity and a thoughtful- 
ness ; there is a calmness. God works on the spiritual 
nature. Man has three parts, — body, soul, and spirit. 
The spiritual nature embraces the affections, conscience, 
and will. The soul embraces our sensibilities and hu- 
man feelings. Satan makes his impressions on the 
human feelings, but the Holy Ghost goes deeper and 
makes his impressions on the conscience. When God 
puts conviction on you, it is generally such a conviction 
as to make you wait and pray awhile, and the more 
you pray, the stronger it becomes. God has a way of 
talking to us so that we know it is God. 

Question. Don't you think Satan confuses us some- 
times in the matter of the will — makes us think we are 
doing the will of God when we find we are not ? 



LOVE ABOUNDING. 

Answer. Yes ; that is one of his methods. People 
get off on a line where they are dedicated to their own 
will and not to God's will. I know professors of sanc- 
tification that will not go to church unless they think 
they are going to take part in the services, unless there 
is some work for them to do. So people are not dedi- 
cated to God's will but to their own will. There are a 
great many ways in which professing Christians can 
show that they are dedicated to their own will and not 
to the will of God. At a camp meeting the other day 
one brother stood up and said that he felt he must talk 
in every meeting he attended, and he was rebuked 
right there by another man, who said to him, " That is 
not of God. God does not command anybody on this 
earth to talk in every meeting he attends ! " A person 
simply gets a notion in his head and is dedicated to his 
own will. In various little ways people can be dedi- 
cated to their own will. It is a trick of the devil to 
get people to make a rash vow and run themselves half 
to death to live up to their vows. 

Question. Please mention some of the fanaticisms 
of the present time. 

Answer. In answering that question I will say 
that fanaticism changes. The old word was " enthu- 
siasm." The word "enthusiasm" means "to be filled 
with God." The old Greeks put it, " To be filled with 
one of the gods or with several of the gods," The mod- 



QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS. 389 

em word is fanaticism ; and fanaticism changes. And it 
changes as a result of what I have previously said about 
the devil's devices. The fanaticism of a few years ago 
is past and gone. Satan's fanaticism is in the end all 
the same, but he has two roads. The fanaticism of this 
age runs off on two principal lines. One is the denial 
of those things in the Scriptures that are historical, 
taking everything figuratively, until there is nothing 
historical and real ; it is all mystical. There is no real 
devil,. no real Christ, no real cross. But there is a mys- 
tical garden, a mystical Eden, a mystical devil, and a 
mystical crucifixion. It is all mystical. It is to run 
away from the reality. Now, that fanaticism a hundred 
years ago or more put on the shape of Swedenborgianism 
then it ran off into Transcendentalism, Theosophy, 
Christian Science. Christian Science of to-day is noth- 
ing on this earth but the Transcendentalism of certain 
localities, and nothing but the old philosophies that the 
Hindoos had five thousand years ago. These people who 
think they have struck something new have only struck 
the nonsense of what they had in Bombay and Calcutta 
five thousand years ago. St. John struck at that. He 
says, "Every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ 
is come in the flesh is not of God." There is always a 
class of people who deny the flesh and blood side of 
Jesus Christ. That is all of the devil ; and St. John 
says if we deny the real flesh and blood of Jesus we 
have got the devil. 



390 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

There is another branch to it. One says, "We have 
no body," and one, " We have no soul." One class of 
people do everything physically, physically, physically. 
They go around preaching that you are full of deprav- 
ity, and never can be made holy until the second com- 
ing of Christ. They say, "When Jesus comes the sec- 
ond time He will appear without sin unto salvation." 
Now those words, " without sin," mean this : He will 
appear the second time not as a sin offering. When 
Jesus came in Bethlehem He came as a sin offer- 
ing. At this second coming He does not come as a sin 
offering. So they say you cannot get a clean heart, you 
cannot get saved, until the second advent of Christ. It 
is physical religion. 

So we have one class of people who say we have no 
soul, and another class who say we have no body. The 
one is the head and the other is the tail of the same 
identical devil. Both roads lead to the same result. A 
lady in New York says she never will die, she has got 
eternal life, her body will be etherealized. 

Brothers and sisters. Christianity must have a body 
and soul to it. We have a body and a soul. Jesus 
had a physical body and an immortal, divine soul. Re- 
ligion must have an outward, physical, human, earthly 
side, and an inward, spiritual side ; and the only way to 
avoid the various fanaticisms and the various heresies 
that are now afloat in the world is for us to do as the 



QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS. 391 

colored people down South say, — " Keep right in the 
middle of the King's highway," — don't switch off 
either to the right or to the left. The main track of 
salvation is a pure heart full of love. If you have vi- 
sions, dreams, if God does wonders for you, thank Him 
for it. If you have discouragements, crosses, sorrows 
and trials, don't get discouraged. If God blesses you 
wonderfully, don't get carried away by your blessings, 
and don't get depressed by your sufferings. Remember 
that in the Christian life we must take both the " ups " 
and the " downs." We must take the whole cross and 
the whole Christian life. But right through the center 
of every life there can be perfect resignation to God's 
will and perfect love to God and man. 



CHAPTER XXVI. 

QUESTIONS A^D ANSWERS. 

QUESTION. When wholly sanctified and baptized 
with the Holy Ghost can we at all times control 
our thoughts, or must we ever say with the Psalmist, 
" I hate vain thoughts " ? 

Answer. Well, there are two questions in this. 
We may have wandering thoughts, and yet not have 
what the Psalmist calls vain thoughts ; for the Psalm- 
ist means by vain thoughts those thoughts that are 
sinful, and they are to be put away from us — hated, 
despised, rejected, cast out. The full salvation does 
not put us where we have perfect control over our 
thoughts, over the laws of mental association. It does 
a wonderful amount toward delivering us from wan- 
dering thoughts, but we must distinguish between an 
evil thought and a thought of evil. That is why our 
good Calvinist brother thinks that we cannot get deliv- 
ered from all sin in this life. He has been taught to 
believe that all thoughts about evil are sinful: whereas, 
you may have a thought about evil, and yet be cleansed 
and be freed from having evil . thoughts. An evil 



QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS. 393 

thought is an evil that lies in the heart and that you 
entertain in the heart ; but a thought about evil is a 
suggestion flashed upon y our mind by. anything you see 
or anything you hear, or by the law of association. So 
that in your prayers there may be flashed into your 
mind, by the law of association, a thought about evil. 
An evil thought is a boarder that you entertain in your 
heart, and give him lodging and boarding; but a 
thought about evil is a tramp that knocks at the back 
door of your being and says, "I want to come in." 
Now you cannot prevent tramps from coming around, 
but you can prevent entertaining boarders. 

Question. You must have the assistance of God to 
doit? 

Answer. It is God that does it. But then you can 
have a clean heart, perfectly free from sin, if you do 
have wandering thoughts. They needn't be thoughts 
in the heart. < No person can perfectly control the sug- 
gestions of the mind, but as years go by divine grace 
will assist to that end. That is the work of growth in 
grace. The work of cleansing the heart is instanta- 
neous, but the work of getting control of your mind is 
the work of growth. Some people have ten times more 
control of their minds than others have. Some people 
have a hundred times more imagination than others 
have. People who have dull imaginations, and who 
have a cold, logical mind, are not troubled much with 



894 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

wandering thoughts, but people .who have very vivid, 
energetic, strong imagination are much more bothered; 
so that if some people had as much trouble with their 
thoughts as others have, it might make them backslide. 
We can all have clean hearts, and to a certain extent 
we can control our thoughts. We can govern our 
thoughts by choosing the lines of meditation, but 
nobody has perfect control over the law of association 
in this life. I don't think anybody ever has professed 
to get to that state, except, perhaps, it may be a few 
fanatics that did not know what they were talking 
about. 

Question. Suppose that one who has a clean heart 
sins. What effect does that have upon the original 
depravity? Does it reinstate it in him? 

Answer. No; it doesn't reinstate the original sin 
that they get cleansed from, — not necessarily, — any 
more than ^ man who has the yellow fever twice has 
got the same fever he had before. He has got the fever, 
but not the identical fever he had before. The deprav- 
ity is depravity, just like smallpox is smallpox. It 
doesn't matter whether we have got the same smallpox 
we had before. If you get wet in the rain, you don't 
get wet with the identical raindrops } r ou did last week, 
but you are wet just the same ; and depravity is deprav- 
ity, just the same as rain is rain. A great many people 
have these fine, ethereal, hair-splitting notions about 



QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS. 395 

depravit} r , and people say sometimes, " If I get a clean 
heart, where does my depravity go to?" Well, if you 
lose your headache, where does your headache go to? 
You tell me where your headache goes to, and I will 
tell you where your depravity goes to. 

Question. What is the difference, if any, between 
the baptism of the Holy Spirit and sanctification ? 

Answer. Well, in one sense there is not much 
difference, and in another sense there is a difference. 
The literal meaning of the word sanctification does not 
imply the baptism of the Holy Spirit. The word sanc- 
tification refers to the negative side, and the baptism of 
the Holy Ghost to the positive side. When you build 
a house, after the house is made you wash it and 
cleanse it, clean out the shavings and make it clean; 
that is sanctification. Then you put in the furniture, 
and that is the baptism of the Holy Ghost. The word 
sanctification refers to cleansing, purging, washing, 
removing depravity: the baptism of the Holy Ghost 
is the diffusion of the presence of God in all the heart 
and mind after cleansing. So that the one is positive 
and the other negative. The two make up one sphere. 
One is one hemisphere and the other the other hemi- 
sphere, but they both go together. God always fills a 
clean heart. The demonstration may not always be the 
same, but God always fills a purified nature. 

Question. Isn't it the Spirit of God that sanctifies ? 



396 LOV£ ABOUNDING. 

Answer. Certainly; that is what I have been say- 
ing, and the baptism of the Spirit sanctifies. But the 
Holy Ghost purifies us in order that He may live in us. 
The Holy Ghost comes to us in conviction. Every 
converted person has the Holy Spirit, but the Holy 
Spirit cannot occupy the heart as He wants to until, 
with our submission and our faith, He gets us where 
He can cleanse us; so that the Spirit of God does all 
the work from the time we are convicted until we get 
safe home to glory. It is the Holy Ghost that convicts 
us and converts us; it is the Holy Ghost that shows 
us our depravity; it is the Holy Ghost that cleanses 
the heart upon our submission and faith, and the Holy 
Ghost fills the heart with love after He purifies it. 

Question. What is meant by the "son of perdi- 
tion," spoken of in 2 Thess. 2:3? 

Answer. Well, it is popery. It means popery, 
though the word popery does not exactly convey all 
the meaning. It means ecclesiastical rulership; eccle- 
siastical, domineering rulership, that gets into the phys- 
ical kingdom of God and then puts on the authority of 
God and goes to bossing God's people. It means a 
domineering power in the Church that takes the place 
of God and imitates God and dictates the terms of sal- 
vation. It is the devil in the church trying to counter- 
feit. 

Question. Isn't faith healing in the atonement, and 
do not Isa. 53: 5 and Matt. 8: 16, 17, imply the same? 



QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS. 397 

Answer. Of course divine healing is in the atone- 
ment; and yet there is a stress being pat on the healing 
in the atonement in such a way as to make it look as if 
there were only two things in the atonement. Divine 
healing is in the atonement just exactly like your bread 
and butter is in the atonement, just exactly like the 
guardianship of angels is in the atonement. Jesus 
Christ sends guardian angels to watch over every one 
of you, and there is not a Christian on this earth that 
has not had the guardianship of angels, and there is not 
a person on this earth around whom God does not put a 
special providence. Now the providence of God is in 
the atonement; the guardianship of angels is in the 
atonement; the provision for your natural life is in 
the atonement ; the apostle says we have the promise 
of the life that now is and of that which is to come, 
and they are both in the atonement. Everything we 
get on this earth that is good is in the atonement, and 
but for the atonement we would not receive any bless- 
ing in this world or any other world. All the blessings 
that infidels are now getting are in the atonement. 
Infidels would not have the privilege of living and en- 
joying life if it had not been for the atonement. Now 
it is in that sense that the apostle says that Jesus 
Christ is the Savior of all men, but especially of them 
that believe. He is the temporal Savior of all men, 
sinners and saints, but He is the special salvation 



398 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

Savior of those who believe. Jesus Christ takes care 
of poor sinners. He keeps them alive, or they would 
drop dead. If it were not for the atonement, there 
would not be anything on this earth but hell. And so 
we owe to the blood of Jesus Christ every blessing of 
this world and every other world. It is all in the 
atonement. The banner of the atonement spreads out 
over both worlds. 

Question. Do } t ou consider that there is any special 
danger, then, when they talk about healiug being in the 
atonement? 

Answer. The danger is in limiting the atonement. 
Christian people should learn to receive everything 
they get from Jesus Christ. " When I say the atone- 
ment, what do I get? " — "I get my salvation and my 
physical healing." — " What else ? " — " Well, I don't get 
anything else." It conveys the idea, somehow, we get 
all the other mercies by chance. No, friends, we get 
everything in the promises. There are thirty-two 
thousand promises in the Bible, and those promises 
cover every condition and every case that can be imag- 
ined in this world, and every single promise is secured 
by the atonement. The death of Jesus secures not only 
our salvation, but secures all our blessings. Jesus 
Christ would never have come to this world except for 
the purpose of dying. 

Question. Would you say that if we seek physical 



QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS. 399 

healing through the atonement it will be just as sure to 
us as if we seek salvation through the atonement? 

Answer. No, sir. God has not promised to answer 
all cases of prayer for healing unconditionally. The 
promises for healing are in the Word of God, and so 
there are other promises, thousands of promises. The 
only infallible thing that we are warranted to look to 
Christ for is salvation. God will in some way answer 
the prayer of people who pray for healing, and, al- 
though they are not healed, their prayer will be turned 
in some way to their benefit ; just as people pray for 
their unconverted friends, and the prayer is not heard 
or answered as far as they can see — in some cases after 
they are dead, and perhaps in some cases the people are 
not saved after all. But, nevertheless, God in some 
way answers the prayer to their salvation. In some 
way all prayers are answered. But there are people 
who have prayed for healing as earnestly as any mortal 
on earth can pray, and they have not been healed yet. 
Others pray a simple prayer and are healed. The rule 
of faith healing is not the same as the rule of salvation. 
Some of the best people in the world, the holiest people, 
are not healed ; and some people who are comparatively 
shallow in their piety, whose piety is not of an extra- 
ordinary type, are healed of physical diseases. You 
must never, while you live, measure salvation by any 
physical blessing whatever. You may have success in 



400 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

business, and some people who are losing money may 
be just as pious as others who are making money. You 
cannot measure piety by success in business, or by good 
health or brains, or by anything on this earth. Reli- 
gious prosperity, spirituality, is not measured by any 
physical measure. 

Question. When a person prays for divine healing 
and is not healed is it because he has committed some 
sin or wrong? 

Answer. Not necessarily. 

Question. One person prays a simple prayer and is 
healed. Another person prays just as earnestly and is 
not healed. Is it right to say that person, because he 
was not healed, had committed some sin and God was 
angry with him ? 

Answer. Not at all. That is a great mistake. If 
we entertain that thought, ifc just opens the door to all 
sorts of fanaticism and to all sorts of misjudging people. 
There was Dr. Sheridan Baker. I have never known 
a saintlier person on this earth. He was bent with 
rheumatism for the last twenty years of his life. Dr. 
Baker had scores and scores of people healed, wonder- 
fully healed, in answer to his prayers, during a course 
of thirty years, and hundreds of times he would have 
friends pray for him, and he would himself begin to 
pray for healing ; and he said he wouldn't pray three 
words, for the moment he got his mind upon God he 



QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS. 401 

forgot all about being healed. He never had a desire 
to pray for healing ; he never was permitted to do it. 
He was anointed, but he was not healed. But he had 
scores and scores of most wonderful cases of healing in 
answer to his prayers. With St. Paul it was the same 
way. He wasn't healed. Scores of people were healed 
through him. So you cannot judge of any person's 
standing by whether God heals him or not. Where 
God is going to heal a person, as a rule, there will come 
upon him a conviction : The Lord will heal you if you 
ask Him. I saw a lady once with spinal disease, who 
could hardly move hand or foot. She said that in the 
night something said to her, The Lord will heal you if 
you ask Him ! Bishop Taylor and myself prayed with 
her, and she said, " I shall be healed in a month! " The 
Lord seemed to impress upon her the day and the hour, 
When that hour came, she arose and dressed herself, and 
she became perfectly healthy. I saw her some time 
after this and she was not half as spiritual then, with 
her health, as she had been on her bed of suffering, 
All sickness comes from the fall, just as mental idiosyn- 
crasies come from the fall, just as all mental stupidity 
comes from the fall. All sickness of body or mind 
comes from the fall. It is not Scriptural, it is danger- 
ous, to teach that every time we get sick it is the result 
of our own sin. It puts the saints of God into the 
worst kind of bondage ; makes them think, — Now the 



402 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

devil has got me ; I am sick, and if I am sick I have 
committed some sin. The people who teach that kind 
of doctrine get the best of people into awful bondage. 

Question. Isn't it directly contrary to the Word 
of God? 

Answer. Yes ; it is not Scriptural. 

Question. Don't you think that is often the reason 
why God doesn't hear — because they wander from the 
path? 

Answer. It might be the case. There is more we 
don't know than we do know. 

Question. If it were best for us, should we be 
healed ? 

Answer. I cannot even say this. The longer I 
live, the more I know and the less I know. There are 
some few things I know ; I have learned a few things. 
But as to the whys and wherefores, God deals with 
every human being differently. No two people in six 
thousand years have lived the same life, and no two 
have had the identical shape to their lives. God has 
a mold for every one, and He has a dealing with each 
person that He does not duplicate with anybody else. 
The principles are the same, the nature the same, the 
love of God the same, the great rules of divine truth 
the same, but the application is different. 

Question. ' What relation has faith to healing, and 
isn't there such a thing as the cultivation of faith for 
healing ? 



QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS. 403 

Answer. No. 

Question. Doesn't it grow by exercise? 

Answer. Faith does not grow by exercise, except, 
perhaps, in a modified sense. Faith has a regular 
history to it, just like anything else has. Everything 
has a beginning and a perfecting. Faith is produced 
by a divine promise being apprehended by the soul and 
received. We have the faculty of faith when we are 
born ; we have the power to believe ; but the power of 
faith comes into exercise when it is brought into con- 
tact with the appropriate promise. Almost everybody 
has the power to love somebody when they are born 
into the world. When they grow up and find the right 
object they are very apt to fall in love. They have the 
faculty to love, but when it came in contact with the 
proper object it then opened itself. So we have got 
power to believe, and when that comes in contact with 
the object it is put in operation. God has given us 
these promises. We are to grow in faith by feeding on 
the promises. The more you feed your faith on the 
promises the more your faith will grow. But faith 
does not grow by exercise or by speculation. Faith 
grows by coming in contact with the great promises 
of God, and by testing the promises. You test one 
promise and find it is true; then you test another; 
and by the time you have lived a good many years 
and tested a good many promises your faith will be 
strong. 



404 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

Question. Is any prayer answered that is not a 
prayer of faith? 

Answer. No, sir; it is not properly a Scriptural 
prayer. A Scriptural prayer is a prayer of faith; and 
yet a great many people pray a prayer of faith who do 
not think they have got faith. Sometimes people think 
they haven't one atom of faith and they sink in despair, 
and at the very point where they despair and where 
they think they haven't a bit of faith, right there is the 
very point where they have got the faith that removes 
mountains and saves their souls. Just as I was think- 
ing I was lost and going right down to hell, right there 
God saved me. The soul has not sense enough to 
understand all that is going on inside the soul, but God 
has. Faith is not so much an exercise as it is an atti- 
tude. Faith is not so much an effort as it is an atti- 
tude. When the soul gets into the attitude then God 
responds. Sometimes a soul gets into the attitude 
when it hardly knows how it got there. Faith isn't like 
swinging your arms or wagging your head. It is not an 
exercise. It is more properly a ceasing from exercise. 
It is resting right back on the eternal rock of God's 
Word and getting in the attitude. 

Question. Can we do efficient work for God with- 
out full salvation ? 

Answer. We can do efficient work for God with- 
out full salvation, but we cannot do sufficient work 



QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS. 405 

without full salvation. There is a difference between 
efficient and sufficient. A boy goes out hunting and 
kills one squirrel, and he is efficient. But he has not 
killed enough to supply a boarding-house with squirrels 
for breakfast. He has not a sufficient supply. If he 
had had more guns and shot more squirrels, he would 
have had a sufficiency. So converted people have a 
measure of God's Spirit and they can work for the 
Lord. They can preach the gospel and do mission 
work and do a good deal for the Lord, but they can- 
not do sufficient work. Jesus says of the very people 
in the Church that are converted and are bearing fruit, 
the very people that are now doing the work of God, 
My Father will cleanse and sanctify them that they 
may bear more fruit ! And no Christian on this earth 
can do his best for God without full salvation; no 
preacher can preach his best without a clean heart 
under the baptism of the Holy Ghost; and if they 
can do as well as they do without the baptism, how 
much more could they do under the baptism of the 
Spirit ! It takes God's Spirit to make us sufficient. 
It is God in us, filling us, that makes us sufficient to 
do His will. 

Question. How may we know we are divinely 
guided ? 

Answer. There is such a thing as divine guidance, 
thank the Lord ! If it were not so, we would not have 



406 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

been here. There is a divine guidance, and God's 
guidance is practically all-sufficient for our light. 
There are three ways by which God guides us. There 
are three elements in divine guidance. God the Father 
is called the God of providence, Jesus is peculiarly 
the Word of God ; so that God the Father guides us, 
Jesus guides us, the Holy Ghost guides us, and all 
three work as one. We are guided by the providence 
of God, by the Word of God, and by the convictions 
of the Holy Spirit. I do not say impressions, because 
that does not go deep enough. I say convictions. 
An impression may be upon your nerves or intellec- 
tual nature, but a conviction strikes clear down to 
the conscience. The Holy Ghost can put convictions 
upon us that are as deep as our very souls. And so 
God leads us. The Lord never makes one of these 
things to conflict with the other. The Holy Ghost 
never guides us contrary to the Word, the Word 
never guides us contrary to Providence, and Provi- 
dence does not guide us contrary to the Word or Spirit; 
so that these three elements of divine guidance are 
always harmonious. Some years ago a lady was at the 
altar seeking a clean heart; and Satan was there, in 
addition to all the other tests that camo up in the mind, 
for he may project something into your mind on such an 
occasion, some test. My wife was speaking to her, and 
she said, " There is one thing in my way. Something 



QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS. 407 

seemed to say to me, ' Will you go to Africa ? ' " 
There have been more people that have had to go 
to Africa than anywhere in this universe. I had to 
go to Africa. We all have to go to Africa. Every- 
body that has got sanctified for the last five years, 
almost, has had to go to Africa. "Well," my wife 
said, " let us see about it; you know God does not ask 
anything foolish of you ; tell me your circumstances." 
She had a husband and four or five children and a 
house to care for. Said my wife, (who has more 
common sense than I have,) " Do you think the Holy 
Ghost will ask you to do a thing that God's provi- 
dence wouldn't allow of your doing? Will God's 
Spirit run against God's providence? And do you 
think God will ask you to go off to Africa, and leave 
your children and husband?" Well, she didn't see 
how He could. Then said my wife, "It may be that 
in twenty years from now that God may want you in 
Africa, and God may turn things so you can go. You 
just simply say, ' Yes, Lord, I will go when you send 
me,' and settle it. All God wants is your heart loy- 
alty. God would rather have your perfect heart loy- 
alty than have Africa, or China, or anything else." 
She said, "Yes, Lord, I will do anything you say," and 
she got through. That was the end of Africa. When 
you want to be divinely led, simply consult God's 
providence and consult God's Word and consult the 



408 LOVE ABOUNDING. 

convictions of God's Spirit upon your heart, and the 
Lord, if you are humble and teachable, will see that 
you are properly led. 




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